Featured
Featured Videos
BIO CEO Rachel King Outlines Industry’s Challenges on “Close to the Edge”
[ Click the lower right icon to view fullscreen with transcript ^ ]
Icahn’s arguments include:- Illumina’s effort to acquire cancer blood test developer Grail despite opposition from U.S. and European regulators, which he says has drained the company of resources.
- Also, Illumina’s shrinking stock price—The company has lost some $50 billion in market capitalization—that’s the share price times the number of outstanding shares of a public company.
- He has also cited the board’s near doubling of CEO Francis deSouza’s total compensation last year, to nearly 27 million dollars, much of that increase based on stock options.

Carl Icahn States His Case for Change at Illumina on “Close to the Edge”
Latest Webinars, GEN Live, Virtual Events, eBooks, & Podcasts
It’s time to grease the wheels of industry—so declares anyone who wants cell and gene therapies produced in greater volume. To date, these therapies have been artisanal products, much to the frustration of developers, manufacturers, clinicians, and (most of all) patients. Fortunately, cell and gene therapy assembly lines are being assembled thanks to innovations in low-volume analytics, vector optimization, bioreactor control, and workflow automation. All of these developments are discussed in the May issue of GEN, which also considers how the image of fast-turning wheels is especially apt for synbio-powered biomanufacturing. There, the whole idea is to set up iterative design–build–test–learn cycles. To keep these wheels spinning, synbio startups are using AI-powered software to drive automated laboratory evolution. Finally, the May issue of GEN reports on the pharma industry’s RSV vaccines, the antibody industry’s bispecific constructs, gene editing’s clinical progress, and mass spec’s proteomics-friendly turn.