on venture capital, biotech trends, politics, and more.
@BijanS. Bijan Salehizadeh of Navimed Capital is a friend and collaborator of Bruce Booth, and like Booth, he’s both a skilled communicator and a keen observer of industry trends.
@mdphdbfd. Stephen Hoffman of Skyline Ventures doesn’t say much on Twitter, but when he does, he’s worth listening to. His irreverent Twitter handle, about an MD/Ph.D being a BFD, speaks volumes. You have to laugh when looking at his Twitter account image alone. It’s the “most interesting guy in the world” from the Dos Equis beer commercials.
Scientists
@dgmacarthur. Daniel MacArthur, more than anyone else, caused me to have my Twitter-is-awesome epiphany. It was early 2010, and he was a young genomics whiz attending a key industry confab in Florida. He started Tweeting on a Saturday afternoon about an impressive presentation on a new semiconductor based DNA sequencer from a stealthy company called Ion Torrent Systems. Forbes’ Matthew Herper re-tweeted it, putting it on my radar screen. I knew right away that not only had I better start following a smart insider like MacArthur, but that I found a good story idea to follow up on. Since then, MacArthur has moved on to a research gig at Massachusetts General Hospital, sent out many more informative Tweets from genomics conferences, and built a legion of followers.
@biotechbaumer. Jonathan Mandelbaum is one scientist who likes to use Twitter for its two-way conversational capability, rather than merely as a platform to just push out his research or views.
@westr. Robert West, a faculty member at SUNY Medical Center in Syracuse, NY, is a very prolific Tweeter with a lot to share and a lot to say about the cutting edge of biomedical research and personalized medicine.
@AtulButte. Atul Butte of Stanford University has a rare blend of interests in computation, biology, and entrepreneurship. He’s someone to watch for insights into the next phase of genomics in medicine.
Investors/Analysts
@BiotechStockRsr. Many Wall Street analysts are limited by legal compliance departments in what they can say, but those rules don’t apply to independent operators like David Miller of Biotech Stock Research. He follows publicly traded development-stage biotech companies, with a particular focus on cancer companies.
@natesadeghi. Nate Sadeghi-Nehad offers up a great mix of sharp biotech commentary, mixed in with flashes of personality. He’s also a contributor to TheStreet.com.
@DewDiligence [Added: 2:30 pm ET] This Twitter feed is by Roy Friedman, who describes himself as a professional investor and director of a private foundation. He showed his market savvy this month in a series of Tweets that questioned the legitimacy of clinical data from Tustin, CA-based Peregrine Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:PPHM]]). Sure enough, Peregrine stock crashed today, as the company said investors should no longer rely on data it previously released about its experimental lung cancer drug.
@BradLoncar. [Added: 2:30 pm ET] Loncar, an independent investor in Lenexa, KS, is best known as the guy who attempted an Internet-based rebellion that called for a boardroom shakeup at Dendreon. Loncar was a bit ahead of the curve on that one, as Dendreon has struggled this year. And he’s been branching out lately, following and commenting on many more biotech companies.
@dsobek [Added: 2:30 pm ET] David Sobek of Sobek Analytics is another biotech investor not afraid to share strong opinions about companies good and bad.
@dbsable [Added: 2:30 pm ET] David Sable mixes in a variety of insights as a life sciences fund manager, a teacher at Columbia University, and as a physician.
@JasonCRG [Added: 2:40 pm ET] Jason Chew is the co-founder of Chimera Research Group, which has a whole team of independent analysts who active in discussing and analyzing the biotech news of the day on Twitter. Co-founder Patrick Crutcher (@ChasingTheAlpha) Tro Kalayjian (@TroKalayjianCRG) and Andrew Goodwin (@BioDueDiligence) are all key members of the team to follow.
Physicians
@erictopol. Eric Topol, the prominent cardiologist at Scripps Health in San Diego, is an advocate for health IT that will lead to nothing less than the “Creative Destruction of Medicine.” Not surprisingly, he was early to embrace Twitter as a communications platform.
@mtmdphd. Mike Thompson is a physician in Waukesha, WI who specializes in hematology/oncology, the field that treats blood cancers. He’s a prolific and influential Tweeter. You can bet the folks at big blood cancer drugmakers know his name well.
@DrAnasYounes. Dr. Anas Younes of MD Anderson Cancer Center is a thought leader in the field of hematology/oncology. That means he’s a busy guy, but not so busy that he can’t share a lot of new and interesting developments on Twitter.
@JackWestMD. Dr. Jack West is an oncologist at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, and a forward thinker in the world of health IT, social media, and telemedicine.
Consultants/Service Providers
@genomicslawyer. Dan Vorhaus, a young attorney in New York, had the foresight to carve out a legal specialty in the fast-moving world of genomics and brand himself on Twitter as the one and only person with the handle @genomicslawyer. He frequently passes along both his writing and relevant genomics news and features from other outlets.
@MaverickNY. Sally Church is a cancer R&D consultant who has made a pretty big name for herself the past couple of years on her Pharma Strategy Blog and through her Tweets. Besides her deep interest in cancer R&D, this charming British lady loves American football. Go figure.
European Biotech Pros [Added 4 pm ET]
@Rowan_UK Rowan Gardner is the chairman of Biolauncher, a Cambridge, U.K.-based firm that helps researchers translate their work in the business world. She’s an avid member of the Twittersphere, following and sharing biotech news of the day in the U.S. and Europe.
@fderubertis Francesco De Rubertis is a venture capitalist with Index Ventures in Switzerland and the U.K. He’s a former postdoc in genetics at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, MA. He’s a pretty prolific Tweeter by VC standards, regularly sharing his global perspective on the biotech, pharma, and medical device sector. Lately, he’s been bantering a bit with a California-based VC peer—Frazier Healthcare’s @BobMoreVC.
@ScripMikeWard Mike Ward is the U.K.-based editor for Scrip Intelligence, a source of pharma industry news and analysis. Given that so many top companies like GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Novartis, and AstraZeneca are based in Europe, it only makes sense to follow journalists like Ward who keep tabs on those operations across the Atlantic.
@ScienceScanner David Grainger is a Twitter-savvy biotech consultant to follow in the U.K. One of his recent Tweets read as follows: “You take the risk, I will take the blame” – so said Paul Janssen – great philosophy for those managing drug R&D.”
@SimonBayly Simon Bayly is a chemist and partner with Epiphany Capital in the U.K. He keeps a close eye on investment trends in biotech around the world. He recently shared this slide deck which sized up the state of European biotech funding.
@AJack Andrew Jack covers the pharmaceutical industry in Europe for the Financial Times. Thanks to @sciencescanner, who alerted me to his presence on Twitter. I’m following him now.
Anonymous Entertainers
@BurbDoc. For sheer entertainment for those in the healthcare industry, it’s hard to beat @BurbDoc. This is an anonymous Twitter account, in which someone has created an everyman physician who loves nothing more than ranting about the dysfunction of modern healthcare. He’s profane, funny, and often is on the mark when he mocks money-obsessed pharma companies, clueless government bureaucrats, and irresponsible patients. Lately he’s been ranting about what he considers the federal government’s lame push to get physicians to adopt health IT systems.
@BioTurdCEO. This is a relatively new anonymous account created by someone who thought it would be fun to skewer biotech CEOs. Whoever this person is, he or she sounds like the little devil that you can imagine whispers cynical advice into the ear of the average biotech CEO, and sometimes prevails over the angel’s advice. His motto is simply: “fleecing shareholders one secondary offering at a time.” When one biotech executive was recently quoted saying a CEO can’t change a board, BioTurdCEO pounced, saying, “Not true. Control investors—>Get friends on board—>Live large.”
OK, deep breath, I think that’s more than enough to get any Twitter newcomers started. If you have more suggestions of people to follow, let me know with a comment at the end of this story.
