The inexorable rise of healthcare costs has created not only a crisis waiting to happen, but also an urgent need for innovation--exactly the sort of thing for which Silicon Valley is justly famous. So where's Silicon Valley when we need it?

The inexorable rise of health care costs has created not only a crisis waiting to happen, but also an urgent need for innovation.

The future is on the way.  Leading-edge innovators, we are assured, have already moved on, and are earnestly focusing on the just the sort of problems - manufacturing, energy, transportation (and I'd add healthcare) - that urgently require imaginative solutions.

Ever since 9/11 a chorus of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and engineers has been urging the government to mobilize them in the fight against al Qaeda.

Reid Hoffman’s talk this week at Stanford (podcast and video available here) touched on several themes that collectively seem to comprise the Silicon Valley innovator ethos; most are relevant to healthcare and biopharma, and I agree with all his assertions except one.

(Hoffman, for...

The New York Senate campaign, where the two candidates have raised a total of $55 million, looks decidedly cut-rate compared with the campaigns for two education initiatives in California.

Why are high-tech areas suddenly getting so much political attention?

Perhaps it's the sweet California air, but the pervasive (though not universal) pessimism in biopharma these days is really bumming me out.  Consequently, I'd like to discuss three potential responses to difficult industry problems.