While contract research organisations (CROs) now dominate the
clinical trials market, questions are being raised about the risks
of 'commercialising' clinical studies, according to new research.
Eighty-year-old Italian pharma company Recordati believes its
future lies in rare diseases and has put its money where its mouth
is by spending €135m on speciality firm Orphan Europe.
Forget diamonds, a new vaginal gel contraceptive could be the
21st Century girl's new best friend with the ability to
be applied up to 18 hours before a naughty rendezvous.
SAFC has announced its plans to build a new high potency
conjugation suite at its Missouri manufacturing plant in order to
target pharma clients developing novel anti-cancer drug conjugates.
Investors in Bristol-Myers Squibb were in a frisson of excitement
earlier this week as speculation mounted - not for the first time -
that the firm could soon become the target of a major
pharmaceutical acquisition.
Applied Biosystems (ABI) has exclusively licensed Olink
Bioscience's proximity ligation assay (PLA) technology that enables
the correlation of gene and protein expression data.
LabTechnologist.com brings you a round up of recent industry news,
with developments at Affymetrix, Celera, deltaDOT, Eksigent,
Farfield, Nanogen and Olympus UK.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been called into
question again after the release of a damning report, this time
suggesting the agency is inadequate in its safety monitoring of
clinical trials.
Discovery Laboratories could see the end of its struggle to launch
its Surfaxin (lucinactant) drug on the US market as it has finally
resolved the manufacturing issues that have plagued the product for
months.
Pharmaceutical companies not only have to face the consequences of
a burgeoning counterfeit drug black market but have to contend with
the theft of their own manufactured drugs for illicit uses,
according to a US consumer advocacy...
The merger between Mitsubishi Chemical Holding's pharmaceutical
unit and Tanabe Seiyaku has been completed and the new entity is
looking to expand its presence outside Japan and create a more
efficient R&D and manufacturing...
A major shareholder in Bioenvision could seriously compromise the
biotech company's proposed $345m (€242m) takeover by Genzyme as it
is preparing to vote against the merger arguing the offer is too
low.
Biogen Idec is pushing forward with a therapeutic antibody that can
turn myelin producing cells back on and so could reverse the
damaging effects of multiple sclerosis (MS).
Although it is over forty years since scientists realised cancer
cells don't have the anti-oxidant protective capabilities of normal
cells, it seems that only one pharma company has developed a drug
to exploit this fact.
Researchers from Novartis have published results using
high-throughput screening (HTS) mass spectrometry (MS) techniques
for the identification of enzyme inhibitors.
Pfizer will appear this week in a Nigerian court to face
allegations that it caused the death of Nigerian children over a
decade ago when it conducted a clinical trial of its
meningitis drug Trovan (trovafloxacin) in the country.
Novartis has hooked up with the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) to fund a project aimed at 'revolutionising'
pharmaceutical manufacturing and doing away with traditional
batch-based production techniques.
Waters and Thar Instruments have agreed to deepen their
collaboration to combine their strengths in mass spectrometry (MS)
and super critical fluid chromatography (SFC) to make separation
science 'greener'.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has taken a step closer to a true targeted
cancer therapy, and its vaccine, which 'educates' the immune system
to kill tumour cells, has showed 'impressive' results in its latest
clinical...
Novo Nordisk is in the process of relocating its clinical data
management centre to India after closing down the operation in
Singapore, where it had been previously run for many years.
The latest in a series of periodic roundups of drugs that have
moved from preclinical research into clinical testing via the
announcement of a Phase I trial or an application for a trial to
industry regulators.
Eli Lilly has agreed to fork out $18m (€12.8m) to settle an ongoing
lawsuit with one of its former biotech research partners and in
doing so has avoided a court battle earmarked for next year.
Dutch firm Crucell is hastily trying to reassure investors that its
popular cell line technology, PER.C6, was not to blame for the
failure of Merck's hotly touted HIV vaccine last week.
German packaging company Gerresheimer has received recognition for
its packaging expertise again after winning the German Packaging
Award the second year in a row.
Californian marketing company BlueLithium has launched a new
web-based solution to help pharma companies overcome the challenges
of recruiting patients for clinical trials.
Wyatt Technologies has launched a new instrument that automates
protein aggregation measurement for use in all areas of the
pharmaceutical industry from drug development to quality control
(QC).
Following the recent news that pharma heavyweight Pfizer has also
been struck by contamination of its HIV drug Viracept (nelfinavir),
in-PharmaTechnologist.com spoke to the US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) to find out how far...
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has proposed plans to
phase out chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in metered dose inhalers that
contain epinephrine, but the decision could spell the end for some
asthma treatments.
Biogen Idec has bagged two new partnerships in the past week which
will see it involved in the search for new drugs for central
nervous system (CNS) and inflammatory ailments.
DBV Technologies is advancing into the realm of allergy treatment
and vaccine delivery using its Viaskin technology, which has
already proved successful as an allergy diagnostic.
Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) will pay up to $490m (€348m) for Adnexus
Therapeutics, as it continues its transformation into a
biopharmaceutical company and strengthens its oncology pipeline.
UK firm Protherics has inked a deal with a Korean partner allowing
the company to make use of its temperature sensitive sustained
release drug delivery system.
UK-based Bespak, one of the two contract manufacturers of Pfizer's
inhaled insulin Exubera, confirmed on Friday it has been approached
by a potential buyer.
Netherlands-based DSM has invested an undisclosed sum in Danish
purification technology company Upfront Chromatography to boost its
protein separation business.
Pfizer is considering offers from investors in a bid to spin off
its drug research and development laboratory in Japan and make it
an independent entity, according to media reports.
SolVin is to expand its polyvinylidene chloride (PVDC) latex
manufacturing site in Tavaux, France, in a bid to meet growing
demand for the packaging material.
Merck & Co. has stopped the Phase II trial of its V520 HIV
vaccine after interim results showed that the vaccine was not
effective and did not prevent infection.