Phylonix has been awarded a grant approaching $1 million (€815,000)
by the US National Cancer Institute to develop an assay for
apoptosis using zebrafish suitable for high throughput drug
screening.
Australian company pSivida is on the brink of starting clinical
trials of a silicon-based nanomaterial that could find broad
applications across drug and vaccine delivery, diagnostics and
tissue engineering, writes Phil Taylor.
A new approach to treating obesity that destroys fat tissue using a
targeted peptide drug has shown promising results in mice and will
move on to non-human primate studies this summer, reports Phil
Taylor.
Germany's Xerion Pharmaceuticals has discovered a protein that
seems to be intrinsically involved in the spread of cancers and
could be a new target for drug therapies. The finding is also a
validation of the firm's Xstream...
Applied Biosystems has unveiled a family of reagents that speeds up
proteomics and biomarker discovery experiments by allowing up to
four peptides to be analysed in single sample, writes Wai Lang
Chu.
Belgium's Opperbas Holding has started a mid-stage clinical trial
of a new formulation of factor VIII - used to treat haemophilia A -
that should cut the number of injections that sufferers of the
bleeding disease need to endure.
Formulatrix and Bruker AXS have pooled their resources to speed up
the process of high-throughput protein crystallography, a key
process in the identification of protein structure and function.
RNA interference is a promising new treatment approach for a range
of diseases, but delivering the RNAi compounds to the right
location has been a major obstacle to their development. Now, US
researchers have succeeded in getting...
Researchers in the US have identified an interaction between a
known cancer-related gene and a cellular enzyme that could be the
target of a new generation of drugs aimed at cancer and parasitic
infections.
Agilent Technologies has launched a microfluidics-based technology
for liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS)- widely used by
scientists in protein research and pharmaceutical applications to
separate and identify biological...
Occam International of the Netherlands has licensed its coating
technology to Xtent, a company specialising in the development of
cardiovascular stents that deliver drugs directly into the blood
vessels.
Swedish drug discovery technology company Cellectricon has raised a
total of SEK 53 million (€5.8 million) following the completion of
its latest Series B financing round, writes Wai Lang Chu.
Researchers in the US are testing a new way to treat HIV by
destroying the virus as it enters host cells. The treatment is
based on the genetic manipulation of the immune cells that HIV
infects to enable them to destroy the virus.
Applied Biosystems has launched a mouse genome microarray that can
be used to detect the expression of genes, even when they are
expressed at very low levels.
Japanese drug companies Yamanouchi and Fujisawa have said that the
entity to be created via their merger next year will be called
Astellas Pharma, drawing on a Japanese word that means 'shine on
tomorrow'.
The outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) earlier
his month in China may have been contained, but it serves as a
timely reminder of the need for continued efforts to develop drugs
and vaccines for the virus, reports...
Ministers at the Council of the European Union dashed hopes that an
EU-wide 'Community Patent' might be in the offing by voting against
the measure at last week's EU Competitiveness Council meeting.
UK-based chemistry specialist Syrris has developed a new
microreactor that, it claims, can speed up the optimisation of
process reactions used in the drug industry.
The use of animal testing in pharmaceutical research and
development is to be revised after the UK government announced it
was to establish a national centre to reduce use and raise
standards of animal welfare.
The world's only stem cell bank was officially inaugurated last
week with the deposit of the first human embryonic stem cell line
to be developed in Europe.
A new company has been set up in the UK to apply high-throughput
technologies to the development of new chemical materials,
including catalysts and novel drugs, for use in the pharmachem
industries.
UK drug delivery specialist SkyePharma received another welcome
boost yesterday with the news that its new formulation of morphine
had been approved in the US.
After over a decade of litigation, Roche Molecular Systems has won
a 'significant legal victory' in a US court case challenging the
validity of patents on its polymerase chain reaction technology,
according to the attorney...
Automated systems provider RTS LIFE Science International is to
launch SmaRTStore, an automated sample management system designed
for customers that do not have the large-scale requirements, or
budget, of the big pharmaceutical companies,...
Pharming of the Netherlands has modified two of its commercial
relationships in a move that should accelerate its activities in
developing therapeutic proteins that are made in transgenic
animals, writes Phil Taylor.
The enzyme alpha secretase could join its beta and gamma cousins as
a promising new target for Alzheimer's disease drugs, if research
conducted in Germany is borne out in additional study.
A new generation of potent, targetted vaccines for cancer could be
the offspring of a marriage between two technologies developed at
European biotechnology companies Avidex and Active Biotech.
The needle-free injector technology underpinning PowderJect, the
drug delivery company which shot onto the biotechnology scene in
the mid-1990s and was snapped up by Chiron of the US last year,
will form the foundation of a new therapeutic...
Researchers have identified a set of genes that control the
development of hair-like structures on cells - called cilia - that
when defective are involved in a range of diseases. They hope the
finding could lead to new drug targets...
A prototype chip-based laboratory developed by a German company
could reduce the time it takes to carry out the DNA amplification
required for polymerase chain reactions to five minutes.
Switzerland's Metrohm has developed a new delivery system for
reagents used in ion chromatography that is designed to reduce
wastage, improve safety in the lab and does away with the need to
dispose of spent eluent cartridges.
Germany's Evotec recording a loss in the first quarter of 2004 due
in part, to what it said was a difficult operating environment for
companies supplying drug discovery technologies.
Germany's atugen, a specialist in RNA interference technologies for
switching off genes, has demonstrated the feasiblity of delivering
a small interfering RNA (siRNA)-based drug and achieving a
physiological response in animals.
Researchers in Belgium have developed a new generation of drugs
consisting of extremely small antibodies - called nanobodies - that
can target tumour cells specifically and seem suitable for oral
delivery.
Computer giant IBM claims to have identified seven key technologies
that will drive innovation in the pharmaceutical industry over the
next decade, raise the quality of development and manufacturing
processes and slash the pre-launch...
Sweden's Biotage has launched a system for carrying out microwave
synthesis reactions that for the first time is targeted at the
individual medicinal chemist.
A small German company has developed a new drug delivery technology
that can transport active drugs into the interior of cells by an
intrinsic, active mechanism.
The company Evotec OAI, a drug discovery and development solution
provider to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries has
announced the successful expansion of their in vitro and in silico
ADMET (Adsorption, Distribution,...
India's Dr Reddy's Laboratories has acquired a US company that
brings in a proprietary drug delivery technology that could be
applied across a whole range of dermatological products.
A US company is gearing up to start trials of a novel drug that
could provide the first orally-active treatment for a range of
genetic disorders, including cystic fibrosis and muscular
dystrophy, writes Phil Taylor.
The threat of emerging strains of bacteria with resistance to the
current arsenal of drugs was the subject of intense focus as the
14th Annual European Congress on Clinical Microbiology and
Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) got underway...
Dutch nucleic acid specialist Qiagen reported strong growth in
sales in the first quarter of 2004, ahead of its forecasts, as
spending by companies in the pharmaceutical industry returns to
historical levels, writes Wai Lang Chu.
A new patch product in clinical trials could provide a
patient-friendly means of delivering the only drug treatment for
osteoporosis that can actually replace lost bone, reports Phil
Taylor.
The number of animals tests needed for new chemicals could be
reduced significantly by the use of assays tests developed by
researchers at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. And
this should be welcome news for companies...
Two years into a major drive to exit the drug development sector
and reinvent itself as an informatics pure-play, Germany's LION
bioscience trimmed its net losses in the 12 months ended 31 March
to €22 million, in line with its...
The cost and time required to develop a new drug and bring it to
market is determined by the therapeutic category of that drug. The
results are consistent with the model that predicts R&D efforts
are generally shifting toward...
The market for RNA interference (RNAi) products used as research
tools and therapeutics is still at an embryonic stage, but looks
set to more than double in value by the end of the decade,
according to new market research.
The raft of US laboratory equipment and consumables companies
reporting results for the first quarter of 2004 this week provides
convincing evidence that demand for these products has returned
among the pharmaceutical and biotechnology...
Applera has been awarded a broad US patent covering the use of
microdevices with built-in electronic memory that can be used for
storing and retrieving information about samples used in laboratory
experiments.
