Strong demand for anti-cancer cytotoxic active pharmaceutical
ingredients (APIs) has led Nicholas Piramal (NPIL) Pharma to
upgrade infrastructure and hire more staff at its high potency
substances (HPS) facility in Grangemouth.
Sentry Logistic Solutions has launched an additional service,
offering to build customised drug storage facilities for
pharmaceutical companies with special needs.
Despite its consolidation, the competitive consumable sector still
offers potential for rapid growth and better profits in the
biopharmaceutical industry, while contract bioprocessing services
will be increasingly in demand, according...
Rexam, the world's largest beverage can maker, has bought Indian
pharmaceutical packaging firm Truepack for £5m (€7.3m), hungry for
a slice of the country's growing pharma market.
Researchers have demonstrated the effectiveness of a new drug for
treating infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus bacteria
representing the first drug of its kind to be FDA approved in two
decades.
For the first time Merck has opened the doors of its
under-construction manufacturing plant in North Carolina to public
officials, boasting it will eventually contribute about two-thirds
of its annual live-virus vaccine production.
US scientists think they have come up with a novel test that
indicates how a patient with early-stage lung cancer will respond
to chemotherapy, giving the opportunity to tailor treatment to the
individual.
As it continues to expand, Decision News Media is currently seeking
two new journalists to join its Pharmaceutical & Science News
Group in Central London.
Global drug development spending will top $105bn (€81.5bn) by 2010
and 40 per cent of this business is expected to be dished out in
outsourcing contracts - with contract research organisations (CROs)
emerging triumphant.
A survey of eleven production plants of major drugmakers has
revealed considerable variation in capacity utilisation, with the
top performers being those who embrace automation and spend little
on non-core activities.
Instrumentation provider ABgene has launched the first automated
device for the opening and closing of screw caps on sample tubes
that it claims is three times faster than the manual method.
Buoyed by lucrative biodefense contracts, Emergent BioSolutions has
showcased a new large-scale vaccine production facility in Michigan
which it will use to make Biothrax, the only vaccine approved in
the US for the prevention of...
Generex has registered a new patent in the US that covers broad
claims for the delivery of macromolecules via the buccal cavity of
the mouth, further safeguarding its RapidMist drug delivery
technology which it uses to spray insulin...
Bionas has launched a product for in vitro profiling the
metabolic activity of cells to understand cellular function that
could prove highly useful in drug discovery and development.
Patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease are one step closer to
receiving Novartis's Exelon as a transdermal patch instead of a
capsule following an international clinical study which showed that
the new delivery method...
A cartridge shortage that forced Amylin and Eli Lilly to ask 40,000
physicians in the US to stop prescribing their injectable diabetes
drug Byetta to new patients has come to an end thanks to a boost in
production by contract manufacturer...
Newly-approved pearlescent pigments that can produce sparkly
metallic, satiny and shimmery finishes on drug coatings could be
used as one additional step in the fight against counterfeiting,
say its developers, EMD Chemicals - part...
Argos Therapeutics has announced that dosing has been initiated in
a Phase I/II clinical trial to test the activity and safety of
AGS-003, a personalised immunotherapy for advanced kidney cancer
(metastatic renal cell carcinoma).
Alantos Pharmaceuticals has initiated a Phase I trial for its lead
compound for diabetes, a disease that commands a global market
estimated at $11bn (€8.6bn) and is expected to grow by more than 50
per cent by the end of the decade.
Researchers believe they have discovered how the HIV virus avoids
the human body's natural defences paving the way for a HIV-specific
cell drug treatment that vastly improves on the drugs that are
currently available.
Ariad Pharmaceuticals has been issued with a patent that covers the
novel use of mTOR inhibitors that are designed for the treatment of
cancers including soft-tissue and bone sarcomas; prostate, breast,
pancreatic, brain, lung and...
Nexcelom Bioscience, a provider of instruments for cell-based
assays, has just launched a new cell counter to make the cell
counting process quicker and easier.
Dendreon has finished the construction of its New Jersey
manufacturing facility which it will use to produce its
investigational active cellular immunotherapy for advanced prostate
cancer, hoping to be the first to bring it to patients.
Albany Molecular Research (AMRI) has announced a multi-year drug
substance manufacturing agreement with New River Pharmaceuticals,
as its attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) medicine
looks set to hit the market.
Pharma firms may soon have the chance to use US prisoners in
clinical drug trials after a new report by a panel of medical
advisers at the Institute of Medicine recommended government laws
against the practice be loosened.
Canada's Allied Research International (ARI) has expanded its Phase
I testing capabilities in response to the continued need for extra
capacity in this area.
Spurred on by the frustration of drug manufacturers, governors from
four US states have petitioned the US Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) for clarity in their requirements for the production of
generic versions of insulin and human...
US manufacturers must stop shipping prescription drugs in bulk
containers, leaving pharmacies to repackage them, as this practice
makes the supply chain more vulnerable and leads to medication
errors, the Healthcare Compliance Packaging...
Pennsylvania environmental regulators have accused Merck of
hampering their investigation of a chemical discharge from its West
Point facility that resulted in a major fish kill on the local
creek and threatened the water supplies...
The convenience of non-invasive insulin delivery methods is set to
overcome their high cost and concerns about safety and efficacy,
with the greatest beneficiary being the European inhaled insulin
market which is predicted to swell...
The use of eClinical software in clinical trials is gaining in
popularity with pharmaceutical, biotechnology and contract research
organizations (CROs), as seen by the recent financial results of
two major industry providers.
Varian makes available its new HPLC columns that are designed for
use in the pharmaceutical industry, particularly in pre-clinical
development, increasing productivity by enabling more products to
be purified in less time.
Biogen has revealed details of a potential new pathway in
rheumatoid arthritis (RA) that could provide unique insights into
the disease process and eventually a new approach to developing RA
therapies.
Covance, the world's largest provider of drug-development services,
is bracing itself for the onslaught of protests by animal rights
activists who are demonstrating against the building of a $100m
(€78.6) laboratory in the US.
Agricultural firm Embrex has installed its in ovo delivery
system and egg remover at the production facility of Shenzhen
Neptunus Interlong, believed to be the largest and most advanced
human influenza vaccine manufacturing plant...
Researchers have developed a new light microscope that is so
powerful ituses a nanometre-scale resolution to spot individual
proteins in a cell byusing a fluorescent labelling method.
India's potential to further boost its already dominant role in
global generics production, as well as an offshore location of
choice for contract manufacturing, presents an opportunity worth an
estimated $48bn (€38bn) in 2007,...
More problems at Patheon's Puerto Rican production facilities in
the third quarter of 2006 are expected to reduce the contract
manufacturer's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and
amortisation (EBITDA) by more...
IBM has unveiled a radio frequency identification (RFID) system for
the tracking and tracing of pharmaceuticals, confident it will
accelerate the adoption of the technology by the drug industry.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has censured three
American national pharmacies for using the traditional practice of
compounding as a ruse in order to operate as drug manufacturers,
producing thousands of unapproved copies...
Millipore launch its version of a tangential flow filtration (TFF)
device for the filtration of monoclonal antibodies and other
therapeutic proteins that form an integral part of the drug
discovery process and development cycle.
Guava Technologies aim to simplify antibody screening with its new
range of quantitative bead-based kits designed to quantify either
mouse or human IgG antibody (Immunoglobulin G) during hybridoma
screening.
AM Pharma has been awarded a US and EU patent for its antimicrobial
peptide to be used in the development of a novel class of drugs
with high efficacy against a broad spectrum of bacterial, fungal
and viral infections.
US biotech firm Genzyme has been given a green light by the US Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin manufacturing its kidney
drug at its Waterford facility in Ireland.
Researchers have theorised that a peptide found in primates could
halt the HIV-1 virus from infecting blood cells. The discovery
could form the crux of an effective drug therapy, which may
overcome resistance exhibited by current...
Gentronix has been granted a research award, which is to fund a
potentially viable alternative to animal testing, reducing the need
for their use during drug development.
