notlob

[deleted, this was a total overshare]

Yeah, exactly. The linked article quotes parts of the suit that specifically say "nicotine salts" which I think is suggestive that this may be a big part of the case.

> JUUL is like any other nicotine alternative (e.g. gum)

Not exactly so, a distinguishing feature of Juul is that the nicotine provided is formulated as a salt rather than as a free base.

What parts of this would you expect to be of interest for startups outside of digital, specifically biotech?

I see where you're coming from now. ABX (antibiotics) are a bit unique. New ABX are sparingly profitable because they are usually incremental developments instead of new classes of compounds. A new class would be lucrative. I see this as a reflection that ABX dev is a ridiculously hard problem with many failures. There are many working in this area, but not much to show yet.

Public funds are used up to proof of concept and sometimes early tox/CMC (often through a CRO), but the bulk of the funding for trials comes from industry.

UPenn and Novartis brought Kymriah to market and Kite brought Yescarta to market. Universities can be great for discovery and sponsored research, but they are not leading the work needed to get to market and they are certainly not funding it. Universities efforts are the visible tip of the iceberg, pharma efforts are the bulk under the surface.

This is an inaccurate portrayal of the pharmaceutical industry. Take CAR-T as one obvious counterexample.

Post-AIA, US utility patents (including APIs, biologics, methods of manufacture/use, etc.) are 20 years with possible adjustments to term length.

I’m not in IT tech, last job search a couple years ago took about a year and I’m starting another that’ll likely take as long. It’s just fantastic to me that multiple people could simultaneously find employment on short notice. It’s a world I haven’t experienced and am frankly envious of.

There could be a good blog post in that? Planning to do right by your employees, even when times are hard.

(Also, I can't imagine what it'd be like for jobs to be easy to find!)