Catalent Pharma Solutions, the firm born from the spin out of
Cardinal Health's contract manufacturing business, is reorganising
its production facilities with an expansion of its UK site and the
divestiture of some of its French...
SkyePharma is looking towards a positive future despite a pre-tax
operating loss of £14.1m (€20.3m), announced in the UK company's
unaudited six-month results.
Swiss supplier and services provider Lonza has added another
product to its catalogue of cell culture media, the most recent
addition to the offering of its new bioscience unit.
Pennsylvania-based ARx has officially opened a new pharmaceutical
manufacturing facility as it races to meet demand for its drug
delivery components and keep up with the times.
The burgeoning US contract assay services arena has witnessed the
arrival of a brand new player with the launch of ReachBio, which is
opening its business operations this week.
Roche has just had the child-size, lower strength version of its
blockbuster flu treatment Tamiflu (oseltamivir) approved by EU
authorities, though possibly just a little too late for this year's
flu season.
Applied Biosystems (ABI) has successfully protected more of its PCR
(polymerase chain reaction) patents with Agilent agreeing to
license its thermal cycler technology.
UK researchers have developed a plastic cell scaffold that enables
cells to be grown in realistic 3D structures and promises to enable
better cell based drug screening results.
Chinese drug manufacturers could be given a 24-hour deadline by
regulators to pull unsafe pharmaceuticals off the market or face a
fine, a Chinese newspaper reported.
Almost 700 jobs are to be lost at Belgian firm Janssen
Pharmaceutica, as the Johnson and Johnson subsidiary falls victim
to a restructuring drive at its parent company.
ProMetic's purification technology has been implemented in a
large-scale biomanufacturing process with an undisclosed client for
a product that will be used in clinical trials.
At this week's research and development (R&D) day in Paris,
Sanofi-Aventis gave a comprehensive update of its pipeline.
DrugResearcher.com was there to bring you the highlights.
French processing and synthesis specialist Groupe Novasep is
heading to the sun with the acquisition of Bahamas-based
ingredients and intermediates firm PharmaChem Technologies.
The biggest counterfeit drugs conspiracy ever to be encountered in
the UK was crushed this week, as gang members were found guilty of
conspiracy by a UK court following a lengthy investigation by the
authorities.
ZaCh Systems has acquired PPG Industries' fine chemicals business
for approximately $65m (€46.9m), which includes a pharmaceutical
fine chemicals facility in Texas.
Sanofi-Aventis hopes it can buck a pharma industry trend of
declining numbers of new drugs with potentially 31 new drug
submissions over the next 3 years.
Microbia and Forest Laboratories have penned a multi-million dollar
deal over the former's first-in-class drug to treat irritable bowel
syndrome (IBS).
Novartis and Bayer Schering Pharma have finally settled their
disputes over multiple sclerosis (MS) drug Betaseron (interferon
beta-1b), with an agreement outlined in March now complete.
The FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) and Gene Logic are to
collaborate in developing a set of industry standards for genomic
data sent to the regulator.
Bioreliance has signed a deal with Gentronix to provide the UK
firm's novel DNA damage testing tool as a service for biopharma
companies for the first time.
Swedish speciality pharma company Meda AB has announced its new low
dose of Soma (carisoprodol) has been approved by the US Food and
Drugs Administration (FDA).
Caliper Life Sciences has launched a new high throughput (HT)
microfluidic assay that automates RNA quality and concentration
assessment for gene expression analysis.
Pharmacopeia plans to expand the Phase I clinical study of its
cardiovascular drug while beginning the next stage of trials,
following promising results so far.
ZS Genetics has signed up outside academic assistance to speed
up development of its 'revolutionary' microscopy-based genetic
analysis technology platform.
Wyeth has signed a license agreement with French firm Flamel
Technologies to apply the company's second innovative drug delivery
technology to one of its protein therapeutics.
Industrial microbiology expert bioMerieux has acquired Australian
firm BTF, strengthening its quality control (QC) and manufacturing
quality assurance (QA) offerings to the pharmaceutical industry.
A new TEM (transmission electron microscope) developed by the TEAM
project has achieved 'the highest resolution images ever recorded'
using the technique.
Vivalis is set to stamp out the Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell
line competition as the French company announces initial results in
a second study on monoclonal antibody production using its
avian-derived cell line.
Novartis is aiming to hunt down its rivals through a pipeline of
truly innovative drugs, measured by increasing numbers of New
Molecular Entities (NMEs) in development.
The European Commission has named research-performing small and
medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as 'the entrepreneurial stars of
Europe', and hopes to raise €800m of extra funds for them.
Loneliness has been linked to serious diseases such as cancer,
heart disease and infection but a new study could point to new ways
of reducing its impact on health.
A group of Canadian scientists have developed a technique to
automatically inject material such as DNA or experimental drugs
into individual cells, to use in drug screening.
Yet another production site has fallen to the unrelenting axe of
big pharma's consolidation drive as Pfizer announces that its only
UK manufacturing plant is to be closed down.
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.
Merck & Co.'s integrase inhibitor, the first in a new class of
HIV drug, looks likely to win approval in the near future,
following a recommendation to regulators.
Enzo Biochem has lodged an appeal after its patent infringement
claims against Applied Biosystems (ABI) were dismissed on Friday in
a summary judgement.
It appears that pharma heavyweight Pfizer has not emerged unscathed
from the contamination chaos that has affected EU supplies of HIV
drug Viracept (nelfinavir), with the company this week warning that
its version of the treatment...
BioDelivery Sciences International (BDSI) has acquired the US
rights to the BEMA oral adhesive disc drug delivery technology for
$3m, with a further $4m to be paid at a later date.
