Denmark's Novo Nordisk is to invest €218 million in a plant to
manufacture insulin in Chartres, France, one of the group's largest
investments outside its home market.
Amersham Biosciences has responded to competition in the
marketplace for purifying tagged proteins with the launch of Ni
Sepharose, a new affinity chromatography medium.
The number of novel pharmaceutical compounds approved for marketing
- a traditional benchmark for the industry's R&D performance -
has seen a welcome increase after years of declines.
A US congressional committee has asked five drug makers for advice
on the measures they are taking to combat the counterfeiting and
diversion of prescription drugs.
Dr Reddy's Laboratories has developed a new class of therapeutic
that could make it the first pharmaceutical company in India to
develop a proprietary blockbuster product.
MorphoSys has entered into a cross-licensing deal with fellow
German company Bayer Healthcare for technologies used in the
development and production of antibody-based drugs.
Applied Biosystems has launched a new product, based on the
combination of a new set of reagents with a software package, that
promises to speed up genotyping studies carried out on the firm's
3730 and 3730xl analysers, first...
Affymetrix and liquid-handling specialist Caliper Technologies -
now renamed Caliper Life Sciences - are collaborating on ways of
automating genomics research carried out using microarrays.
Switzerland's Roche is setting up an R&D centre in Shanghai in
a move which reflects the growing importance of the country as both
a market for pharmaceutical products and a site for drug research.
A survey has found that difficulties in swallowing pills is
widespread among adults, but is rarely discussed with doctors and
can prevent some people from taking their medicine. The findings
suggest that pharmaceutical companies should...
A recent trend in drug development has been the re-invigoration of
older pharmaceuticals by developing new versions based on just one
of the two optical isomers of the active compound, a process known
as racemic switching. But critics...
A microarray developed by Protometrix has been used to characterise
the interactions between an antibody-based drug and the proteome -
a snapshot of all the proteins produced by a cell.
A study which has found significant differences between the adult
and childhood forms of asthma suggests that pharmaceutical
companies may have to rethink their approach to developing new
drugs for the disease.
DFB Pharmaceuticals has appointed Magnus Precht as the new
president at Phyton, a company specialising in plant cell
fermentation for the production of pharmaceutical which it acquired
last year.
A US-based private equity firm is the latest to join the list of
bidders for Dynamit Nobel, the chemicals business being sold by
German chemicals and engineering group MG Technologies.
The US Biotechnology Industry Organisation has come out in support
of European legislation that it says will require extensive tests
to be conducted on so-called 'biosimilar' versions of biological
drugs.
Dow Chemical has started a new research product, with the support
of the US government, that could hasten the time it takes to make
vaccines in response to a new epidemic or biological attack.
Cypak, a Swedish company specialising in novel forms of packaging,
has signed what promises to be a major new deal for a 'smart'
blister pack system that can detect if patient is taking medication
as prescribed.
The US market for chiral technologies - used to make single isomers
of compounds - will grow by an estimated 8.8 per cent a year to
reach a value of $1.8 billion (€1.4bn) in 2008, according to
soon-to-be-released market research.
The US government's attempt to reform the federal Medicare system
to provide a prescription benefit for the elderly and disabled has
been slammed by the Democrats, who believe it will prevent US
states from negotiating price...
Millipore has developed a new set of labels for its filter products
that should make it easier for its biopharmaceutical customers to
comply with the obligation to keep accurate batch production
records.
Colony counting and picking are well-recognised as one of the most
boring, repetitive and error-prone jobs in the lab, and there has
been a strong desire to automate the process.
Large Scale Biology Corp has solved the problem of supplying large
quantities of aprotinin - widely used in the manufacture of
biologic drugs - by developing a recombinant form that is made in
tobacco plants.
European clinical researchers have launched a campaign calling on
the European Parliament and Commission to repeal a new Directive on
Good Clinical Practice (GCP) on the grounds that it will hinder the
conduct of non-commercial trials.
An ageing drug for asthma marketed by Abbott Laboratories could get
a new lease of life from a revamp using drug delivery technology
developed by SkyePharma of the UK.
World pharmaceutical packaging demand will increase at a rate of
4.3 per cent a year to reach $22.2 billion (€17.2bn) in 2007,
according to a new report from Freedonia Group. Companies supplying
blister packaging will benefit from...
Genentech's strategy of expanding beyond its traditional territory
of protein-based drugs and into small molecules was reinforced
earlier this week by its new agreement with Array BioPharma.
German pharmaceutical company Altana has started construction of a
€70 million manufacturing facility in Cork, Ireland. The move would
appear to refute claims that the attractiveness of the region to
the drug industry is on the wane.
BASF IT Services, one of the first units of the German chemical
major to be spun out into a separate unit, has signed an agreement
with Merck KGaA that confirms its ability to win major contracts
from companies other than its parent.
UK independent Pentagon Chemicals has made its first major
acquisition since spinning out of parent Dow Chemical in a
management buyout in 2002, in a move which bolsters its product
range and contract manufacturing capacity.
Bayer Fine Chemicals has developed a new way to make chiral
epoxides that could shorten reaction times and reduce the amount of
expensive catalysts used in the process.
Qiagen of the Netherlands has started shipping a set of RNA
interference (RNAi) reagents that correspond to the 5,000 or so
genes in the human genome thought most likely to be viable targets
for drug discovery.
Researchers in the UK have discovered a protein that seems to play
a key role in repairing the DNA of cells. The discovery could lead
to a way of inhibiting malignant cells from repairing themselves
after treatment, potentially improving...
The Automation Partnership (TAP), a company specialising in the
application of robotics to pharmaceutical drug discovery and
production, has named a new chief executive to succeed Richard
Archer, who is stepping down in February.
MW Consultants, a small Irish company specialising in engineering
and construction in the pharmaceuticals industry has been acquired
by US firm Parsons Corp.
The pharmaceutical industry must cut the time its drugs linger in
development and terminate less promising projects earlier if it is
to improve the efficiency and productivity of its R&D
programmes.
Schering-Plough is to cut 18 per cent of its workforce at a
manufacturing plant in Brinny, Ireland, in the face of stiff
competition to two of the firm's biologic drugs.
The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg has thrown out
allegations by the European Commission that Bayer, the German
pharmaceutical firm, had established a cartel agreement with its
wholesalers to restrict the trade flow of its...
The Automation Partnership has launched a new robotic system
designed to take the legwork out of extracting proteins made in
microbial or insect cells.
Although there are some signs of an economic recovery that should
help its business, the European chemical and pharmaceutical
industry can expect to have another difficult year in 2004.
Japan has said that it intends to require all prescription drugs to
carry bar codes in a bid to prevent medication mix-ups, but
hospitals are worried about the cost implications of the move.
A collaboration between Switzerland's Genedata and Bayer of Germany
has led to new way of developing assays for antibacterial activity
and accelerate the search for novel antibiotic classes.
A prototype machine developed by SPAMI, a subsidiary of Italian
glassware company Stevenato, can produce glass containers for
pharmaceutical uses that are superior in quality to those made via
existing processes.
Akzo Nobel unit Diosynth has unveiled plans to cut 70 jobs at its
UK subsidiary based in Fife, Scotland, because strong competition
from Asian competitors is hitting the business.
Senior executives at LGC, a UK-headquartered provider of
pharmaceutical reference materials and analytical and diagnostic
services, are gearing up for a secondary buyout that will help it
to accelerate its expansion into international...
A Scottish life sciences company specialising in the development of
bioinformatics software has been sold to QbioCom, a rival firm
based in England, for £1 million.
Virologists in China have said that a man suffering from fever and
a respiratory infection is infected with severe acute respiratory
syndrome (SARS), the viral disease that caused nearly 800 deaths
around the world in the first half...
