Italian glassware specialist Stevanato Group has consolidated the
engineering side of its business through the acquisition of fellow
Italian company Optrel.
Active packaging specialist Multisorb Technologies is in the midst
of developing a new desiccant product that will offer a novel
built-in solution to producers of dry powder and metered dose
inhalers.
A new machine developed by US firm Vardex Laser promises to offer a
unique solution to the global problem of drug counterfeiting,
protecting products right down to the pill itself.
US diabetics will soon have a new alternative to the predominant
needle and syringe method of administering insulin, now that the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted marketing approval
to Sanofi-Aventis' Lantus SoloStar.
West Pharmaceutical Services reported a 40 per cent increase in
operating profit for the first quarter of 2007, despite profits
diving 43 per cent in the Tech Group business that makes the
delivery device for Pfizer's inhaled...
The pharma industry sees great opportunities in using Radio
Frequency Identification (RFID) technology during clinical trials,
a new survey has revealed.
A group of Swedish scientists have discovered a new method of
disabling genes that could be used to stop genetic disorders in
their tracks, such as Huntington's and some cancers.
The twelfth 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.
LabTechnologist.com presents its periodic round up of recent
industry news with new developments at Agilent, Beckman Coulter,
Carl Zeiss, DuPont, Luminex and PerkinElmer.
US contract manufacturer PharmaFab has agreed to stop the
manufacturing and distribution of some of its drugs after
regulators found they were produced illegally.
While the media calls out for new antibacterials, the majority of
large pharmaceutical companies seem disinterested in investing in
new treatments, leaving smaller biotechs to pick up the gauntlet.
Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) has announced its second collaboration
this year with a fellow big pharma firm, aimed once again at
reducing the inherent risk of drug development.
Clinical trial sponsors are outsourcing the majority of clinical
work in Phase I and gradually bringing functions back in-house as
compounds move through the development stages.
Dutch company OctoPlus has extended its rights to the PolyActive
delivery technology used in its lead drug candidate Locteron, based
on interferon alfa.
Parexel has announced healthy financial results for its third
fiscal quarter, despite another disappointing performance in its
medical communications business.
Alpha M.O.S. has recently released an update for its Fox electronic
nose (e-Nose) to provide faster analytical analysis of samples in
R&D, quality control (QC) and process monitoring settings.
Paladin Labs has reached an agreement in principle to acquire the
outstanding shares of BioEnvelop Inc, which develops, manufactures
and markets rapidly dissolving edible films for use as delivery
systems in the pharmaceutical and...
New research suggests that it may be possible to design a vaccine
that will enable the immune system to 'remember' pathogens without
a preceding strong immune response.
Roche gave an update on its manufacturing of influenza drug Tamiflu
(oseltamivir) today, saying that while it had reached its target
capacity of 400 million doses a year, demand is running much lower.
Owens-Illinois, the US company best known as a manufacturer of
glass containers, has finalised a 50/50 joint venture with Pavisa
Industries to manufacture and sell plastic healthcare containers in
Mexico and other Latin markets.
A combination of different probiotics strains reduces the ability
of potentially pathogenic bacteria to colonise the gut more than
single strains, says new research that proposes industry should
look to expand research in this area.
Pharma firms can now follow US regulator's recommendations for
testing the cardiac safety of drug candidates more fully - thanks
to a new addition to Millipore's services.
ProBioGen, a specialist in mammalian cell engineering and cell
culture, has entered into two separate agreements to develop
therapeutic proteins with Egyptian drug manufacturer Minapharm..
A crop-based alternative to regular plastics that is biodegradeable
and compostable, developed by biotechnology firm Metabolix and
agriculture giant Archer Daniels Midland, is to be developed for
pharmaceutical applications.
A novel buccal patch formulation of the opioid painkiller fentanyl
is on track to be filed for approval in the third quarter of this
year, following encouraging efficacy data from a Phase III trial.
BioQuate has denied claims that its mainstay device for improving
media throughput and maintaining sterile system integrity in
biotechnology production, infringes on a patent for a rival product
marketed by filtration and separation...
French company Roquette has been awarded a US patent for a
dissolve-in-the-mouth drug delivery technology that makes use of
its novel StarLac excipient.
After a troubling few months, Pfizer has announced some good news -
US regulators have recommended its first-in-class HIV/AIDS drug
should be approved.
A new biotech company has been formed to fully exploit
technology for repairing genes that cause rare, hereditary diseases
such as sickle cell anaemia and spinal muscular atrophy.
Successful applications of cold-form film and security foil helped
the Pharma/Healthcare division of Austria's Constantia Packaging to
deliver above-average growth in 2006, the company reported.
Biotech giant Amgen has posted healthy results for the first
quarter following a positive performance by its blockbuster anaemia
drug Aranesp (darbepoetin alfa).
The ever increasing sales of high-voltage field emission
Transmission Electron Microscopes (TEMs) highlights the growing
importance of understanding structure-activity relationships in
structural biology.
Denmark's Novozymes has set up a dedicated business unit in the UK
to make and sell ingredients that support companies wanting to
produce biopharmaceuticals without using animal-derived
constituents.
Varian has launched a new dissolution system specifically geared to
testing small drug volumes in medical devices such as implants or
drug-eluting stents.
A new method for generating large volumes of therapeutic antibodies
direct from Escherichia coli bacterium could knock weeks
off conventional mass-production processes that scale up to
mammalian cells, US researchers believe.
Contract research organisation (CRO) Chiltern has announced it is
expanding its services with a new solution aimed at helping clients
boost their clinical research staff recruitment process - an
increasingly difficult task due to...
UK firm Futura Medical is in the running for a second license
contract for one of its drug delivery platforms after pharma
heavyweight GlaxoSmithKline came to the table to discuss terms.
A new market-oriented approach to product development, more
favourable licensing arrangements, strategic acquisitions and a
fresh crop of proprietary drug-delivery technologies helped UK
company BioProgress to deliver an adjusted...
Novartis has licensed a potential first-in-class vascular
disrupting agent from Antisoma in a deal worth up to $890m (€656m),
highlighting the company's increasing focus on the oncology market.
BioFocus DPI is developing a drug screening service that will use
primary cells in an attempt to improve pharma productivity,
although first it must persuade the industry that the technique is
reliable.
Nurturing slow and steady progress is the key to successful drug
development, rather than relying on breakthroughs, according to a
report from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry
(ABPI).
While technology cost and lack of a demonstrated return on
investment constitute the biggest barrier to adoption of radio
frequency identification (RFID) in the pharmaceutical industry, the
lack of a frequency standard runs these...