US company Incyte Genomics is closing down its Palo Alto-based gene
information division, saying that the availability of free genetic
databases on the Internet has scuppered the unit's business.
Researchers from Vertex Pharmaceuticals have identified the first
crystal structure of Flt-3, a member of the receptor tyrosine
kinase family that is implicated in the development and progression
of leukaemia, paving the way for the...
News that the outbreak of avian flu in Asia today claimed its
twelfth victim - and unconfirmed suggestions that it may be spread
from human to human - has lent additional urgency to efforts to
develop a vaccine against the virus.
The UK's Cambridge University has scrapped plans to build a primate
research centre to conduct research into neurological disorders
which caught the attention of the scientific press late last year.
Tecan of Switzerland's US subsidiary has launched Cellerity, a new
system designed to produce a ready supply of cells for cell-based
assays, at the LabAutomation 2004 exhibition, which opened its
doors yesterday.
Spanish manufacturer of choline salts Algry Quimica has signed
several new research agreements to develop active ingredients for
pharma and food applications.
Sanofi's hostile bid for larger French rival Aventis may have been
rejected, but there are a number of arguments in favour of a link,
according to analyst Nicole Lamble at market research firm
Datamonitor.
A rheumatoid arthritis drug developed by Franco-German company
Aventis has been linked to the deaths of five patients in Japan,
prompting the company to warn against prescribing the drug to
people with respiratory problems.
Eksigent Technologies is launching a new high-pressure liquid
chromatography system in March that can increase throughput
compared to rival HPLC systems as much as six-fold.
Filtration specialist Millipore has reported strong growth in sales
in the fourth quarter of 2003, suggesting that the fortunes of the
biopharmaceutical industry - Millipore's primary customer - may be
on the up.
Dutch biotechnology company Crucell has appointed a new chief
execvutive as it continues its transition from a company
specialising in enabling technologies to one focuused on product
development.
Israel-headquartered generics company Teva Pharmaceutical
Industries has completed its $3.4 billion takeover of US company
SICOR, which makes generics and active pharmaceutical ingredients.
Since they were introduced in the early 1990s, beta interferons
have become the standard of care for patients with the
neurodegenerative disease multiple sclerosis, but up to a third of
MS patients do not derive a benefit from these...
Japanese pharmaceutical companies must build strong, in-house,
R&D capabilities in order to survive, according to research
from market analyst firm Datamonitor. But this is not simply a
matter of spending more money; strategic...
French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Synthelabo has launched a
hostile takeover bid for its larger rival Aventis, in a move which
would create a top three drug major.
A commercial unit of the UK Medical Research Council (MRC) has
launched a gene-silencing library - based on small interfering RNA
(siRNA) - that covers 90 per cent of the genome of the fruitfly
Drosophila melanogaster which is widely...
Chiltern International, one of Europe's leading mid-sized contract
research organisations, has opened up an office in Ukraine to tap
into a growing market for clinical trial services in central and
Eastern Europe.
If 2003 was marked by consolidation in the biotechnology industry,
then in 2004 the spotlight seems to have tracked firmly back to
pharmaceuticals - and particularly the European majors.
Irish pharmaceutical group Elan has raised around $70 million
(€55m) from four new deals, including the sale of formulation and
manufacturing interests.
The bacterium Listeria monocytogenes is well known as a
cause of food poisoning, but could also improve the safety and
effectiveness of vaccines for a number of viral diseases, according
to US researchers.
General Electric's €8.1 billion acquisition of the UK's Amersham
was approved by the European Union yesterday, after it concluded
that the deal would not create a monopoly in Europe's medical
imaging market.
German contract ingredient manufacturer Girindus posted its first
profit since it was floated on the stock exchange in 2000 in the
last quarter of 2003, as sales rose 16 per cent to €32 million.
UK-headquartered NextGen Sciences has formed an alliance with
Germany's Protagen aimed at developing 'biochips' that can contain
thousands of functional proteins for use in drug discovery.
Dowpharma has developed new strains of the bacterium Pseudomonas
fluorescens that can be used to improve the yield of
recombinant proteins made in fermentation vats.
Scientists at the Babraham Institute in the UK have discovered that
a tiny change in a protein involved in cell survival is responsible
for abnormal cell activity in the early stages of cancer.
Understanding how the cancer gets going...
Amersham Biosciences has responded to competition in the
marketplace for purifying tagged proteins with the launch of Ni
Sepharose, a new affinity chromatography medium.
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 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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
German chemistry specialist ChiroBlock has pulled out of the
business of producing and marketing chiral compounds and will focus
exclusively on providing chiral research and synthesis services for
pharmaceutical and biotechnology...
Indian companies may be making great strides in capturing
international market shares for bulk pharmaceutical ingredients and
generic drugs, but to date they have not made a great impression on
the laboratory tool market.
