# Key Points from #hplusroadmap IRC Discussion (July 25, 2013)

• Participants analyzed biotech venture capital trends, noting that biotech had fallen to second place behind software with approximately $3.7-4.1 billion invested across 460-466 deals in 2012, representing a 15% decline from the previous year.

• The channel discussed how pharmaceutical companies like GSK's SR One and Novartis Venture Fund have become major players in biotech venture capital, contributing $500M-$1B annually to the ecosystem.

• Members critically evaluated DNA sequence editing software companies (DeskGen, AutoClone, Synbiota, Benchling), observing market saturation despite limited demand and a small total market size under $10M, while noting VectorNTI's declining usage in synthetic biology.

• The group debated the viability of small biotech startups, comparing current biotech entry costs to 1990s internet startups that required hardware investments, and questioning what meaningful progress could be achieved with only $50k in funding.

• Technical discussions included Python parallel processing options, with recommendations for gevent, multiprocessing module, Celery (preferred over ZeroMQ), and RQ for minimalism, with code examples shared via GitHub Gist.

• The channel functioned as a resource-sharing community for transhumanist and scientific research, using tools like "paperbot" to access scientific papers, including one from Science Translational Medicine (DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3006135).