Pfizer is to plough $300m (€226m) into South Korean research and development over the next five years, while it's CEO is planning to visit North Korea tomorrow.
Diverse manufacturer 3M has agreed to sell off another chunk of its
pharmaceuticals business, fourteen months after it decided to give
up on the 'very competitive' industry.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) outlined more details on the mechanism of its
anticancer drug ofatumumab - an antibody that was the subject of
the biggest ever pharma licensing deal.
BioFocus DPI has released a new informatics system that can combine
chemical and biological data from various sources to optimise
protein kinase inhibitor candidate selection.
Agilent has launched a new tool that removes the 14 most abundant
proteins found in blood plasma and serum to speed up the discovery
and identification of low-abundance proteins and biomarkers.
Histological evidence of tumour destruction has confirmed the
promise of Epeius Biotechnologies' Rexin-G as an effective targeted
gene therapy platform for metastatic cancer.
This year's American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO)
conference is over and as 45,000 scientists head home,
DrugResearcher.com looks at some of the most innovative drugs that
were on show.
Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics (AMT) lead candidate AMT 011, a
Lipoprotein Lipase (LPL) Deficiency treatment has received Orphan
Drug Designation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
A molecule that links spontaneous physical activity such as
fidgeting and food intake could be a promising new target for drugs
to control diet-induced obesity, researchers from Europe and the US
suggest.
Oxigene's potentially first-in-class cancer drug is showing
promising clinical results and could rival a drug Novartis'
recently spent nearly a billion dollars on.
The seventeenth 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.
Newly-formed Brane Discovery has licensed a Parkinson's research
programme to become the third company in three years to own the
potentially first-in-class drug candidates.
DeltaDOT has been given a government grant to commercially develop
a new tool to allow researchers to reduce dramatically the time it
takes to weed out unsuitable drug candidates.
Japanese researchers have developed a high throughput method for
screening the activity of beta-amyloid protein aggregation
inhibitors that should speed up the discovery of new Alzheimer's
therapies.
Analysing the images from protein separation experiments, such as
2D gel electrophoresis (2DGE), is not only time consuming but can
often miss 'hits' and give false positives. But it doesn't have to
be that way, according...
Over 50 per cent of proteins in the body are considered too
difficult to target with drugs; they are 'undruggable'. Yet it is
exactly these molecules US pharma firm Avalon is focussing on.
Scientists who have genetically engineered mice to be more
intelligent, claim the results could lead to new treatments for
Alzheimer's, post-traumatic stress disorder or drug addiction.
The first contract research service alliance (CROSA) in China has
been formed between three leading local firms to provide a more
exhaustive range of drug development services to pharma companies.
A non-invasive technique that uses hair plucked from cancer
patients to guide the development of new chemotherapy drugs has
attracted the attention of UK pharma giant AstraZeneca.
Anglo-German firm Evotec is taking its fragment-based drug
discovery (FBDD) services a step further with the launch today of a
new innovation centre for FBDD.
An animal model used to evaluate vaccines could be "far more
useful" to predict potential side effects than current methods,
according to its developers, AMDL.
A company that specialises in designing first-in-class small
molecule drugs that modulate ion channels has been given an award
for its innovative preclinical research.
The race to put the first cancer therapy based on RNA interference
(RNAi) technology into clinical trials has heated up with one
developer claiming it is almost ready to go.
US-base firm Quest Pharmaceutical Services (QPS) has announced that
its Taiwan testing facility can now provide bioanalytical services
managed directly from the US.
Specific stem cells are thought to be the origin of many, if not
all, cancers and although there are several drugs in clinical
trials, only small companies are currently conducting research in
the area.
In this week's review of activity within the preclinical research
services arena, new deals have emerged involving Gene Bridges,
Panacos Pharmaceuticals, and GenScript.
Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) has agreed to fund Isis Pharmaceuticals'
antisense drug development programme aimed at preventing and
treating heart disease.
Charles River has posted first quarter results that beat analysts
expectations after seeing renewed growth in its research models and
services segment.
A first-in-class drug developed to battle high blood pressure might
not be the blockbuster success Novartis hoped for after a new study
claims it is no more effective than current therapies.
This week Covance has paid PETA Europe's court costs relating back
to a failed legal bid to prevent the broadcast of video footage
taken during a covert investigation of its US animal laboratory.
Meanwhile, GSK has had a positive...
The UK has upheld its promise to crack down on its problem of
animal rights extremism, arresting 30 people in dawn raids across
the country yesterday as part of 'Operation Achilles'.
Pressure BioSciences (PBI) is set to release a new lightweight
version of its pressure cycling instrument to control biomolecular
interactions, after a downsized demo model proved surprisingly
popular.
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.
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.
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.
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.
