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.
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).
Australian politicians begin their first round of votes this week
to decide the fate of a controversial new law that could legalise
therapeutic embryonic cloning in the country for the first time.
Positive results from trials of Cell Genesys's latest immunotherapy
treatment, GVAX, show that the therapy induces a broad immune
response in prostate cancer sufferers that is patient specific.
French contract research organisation (CRO) Porsolt & Partners
Pharmacology has signed a co-marketing deal with Singapore-based
start-up Maccine to co-promote their respective preclinical service
offerings to pharma and biotech...
Vertex Pharmaceuticals has released early results on its
first-in-class hepatitis C drug that show it has the potential to
shorten treatment times for those suffering from the hard-to-treat
genotype-1.
The approval of GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) Altabax gives clinicians
the first new class of topical antibacterial treatments in nearly
20 years - adding more firepower to the fight against bacterial
resistance.
Galapagos' recent acquisitions seem to be paying off as the Belgian
biotech firm has announced its contract services unit BioFocus DPI
has inked two new deals with Japan-based Ono Pharmaceutical.
A new study has shown that certain human bone marrow stem cells can differentiate into sperm stem cells - potentially leading to a revolution in fertility therapy.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Adolor have halted development of an
innovative drug designed to improve pain relief, amid concerns that
the drug could cause heart problems.
In this week's review of activity within the preclinical research
services arena, new deals have emerged involving Argenta Discovery,
SRI International and Discovery Partners International.
A new range of software has been launched to provide researchers
with tools to analyse multiple proteomics techniques and yield more
complete data sets.
First its lead product failed a Phase III clinical trial, and now a
different anticancer drug has produced 'lacklustre' results,
leaving Neopharm with an uncertain future, according to some
industry analysts.
A drug discovery collaboration between Ranbaxy and GlaxoSmithKline
(GSK) is bearing fruit with the companies stepping up their
respiratory inflammation research.
Evotec is willing to accept significant losses, at least in the
short term, as it moves from being solely a service provider, to
having its own drug development programme as well.
Covance is seeing the high potential of the booming market for
biomarkers and has decided to devote an entire expert team to
support clients with biomarker-related services.
An exclusive license to a late stage product has enabled
Sanofi-aventis to up the stakes in a bid to be the first company to
release a dedicated cancer vaccine.
A next-generation insomnia drug has been put to bed after its
developers decided the risk of using the drug outweighed its
potential benefit to millions of insomnia sufferers.
More analysis of a drug's target and mode of action in the
preclinic has been called for in the draft guidelines for
first-in-man trials published by the European Medicines Agency
(EMEA).
Antisense drug developers received a boost today with the news that
Isis Pharmaceuticals' cholesterol lowering drug is showing good
results in clinical trials.
Suggestions that Pfizer's scrapped cholesterol drug could actually
make coronary artery disease worse could set hearts racing among
others developing drugs in the same class.
Contract research organisation (CRO) Charles River Laboratories has
announced it will establish a presence in China by signing a joint
venture deal with Shanghai BioExplorer, a Chinese preclinical
services provider.
Indian biotech firm Biocon is planning to boost its contract
research business as global pharma companies are increasingly
looking to outsource R&D to India, according to media reports.
A new wave of drugs designed to treat rare brain disorders, which
are caused when proteins don't fold correctly, are showing
promising results in trials, according to their developer.
The seventh 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.
ActivX has launched a new profiling platform, which the company
claims allows the functional analysis of twice the number of
protein kinases than competing systems.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has today opened a new medicinal chemistry
laboratory in Singapore and plans to double the number of
researchers hired at the site to 60.
Scientists hope to harness the power of Sony's new PlayStation 3
games console to conduct research on protein folding and associated
diseases such as Alzheimer's and cancer.
The mayor of a US city where Covance is planning to build a
controversial new preclinical testing facility met last week with
the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and government officials to
discuss the animal testing issues surrounding...
A novel drug designed to prevent coronary heart disease has failed
a pivotal clinical trial although the developers are hopeful the
drug might still win approval.
GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) new breast cancer drug has been given the
all clear to be used in the US, with the company expecting European
approval to follow later this year.
Eli Lilly & Co has withdrawn its European approval application
for Arxxant (ruboxistaurin), a potential blockbuster drug to treat
blindness caused by diabetes.
A new piece of equipment could enable scientists to study changes
in protein structure, including those necessary to cancer tumour
growth, both faster and more accurately, according to its
developers.
A new report has been released this week calling for reforms in
first-in-man clinical trials in the wake of the TGN1412 drug trial
disaster in London last year.
