As America desperately waited for its influenza vaccines, Chiron
had to deal with major quality control issues between July and
October 2005 at its troubled vaccine manufacturing plant in
Liverpool according to a US Food and Drug...
Copapharm Europe, the alliance of specialist packaging companies,
has announced "healthy" sales figures for 2005, as its
one-stop pan-European approach to the supply of pharmaceutical
packaging equipment is becoming more...
ExonHit Therapeutics was present at the PiperJaffray healthcare
conference in London giving investors updates on company activity
over the last year. The company are coming off the back of a patent
application, which covers a number...
A dry powder nasal flu vacccine is being hailed by its developers
at DelSite Biotechnologies as a unique storage solution, providing
delivery advantages over traditional flu vaccines in the event of a
bird flu pandemic.
Frost & Sullivan has awarded biopharmaceutical firm Cytogenix
with its 2006 award for innovation in biotechnology processing for
its cell-free manufacturing method that enables generation of large
quantities of high-purity DNA...
Applied Biosystems (AB) is to acquire Agencourt Personal Genomics
(APG) for approximately $120m (€94m) in cash in which the life
science specialists will gain a novel, high throughput approach
with applications in DNA sequencing,...
As clinical trial activity in the Asia Pacific region continues to
boom, Novotech, the largest Australian owned contract research
organisation (CRO) has presented a checklist to help pharma firms
minimise risk when choosing a partner.
European life sciences received an unexpected boost as the European
Science Foundation launched an initiative to help promote and
coordinate interaction among European life sciences researchers and
funders.
New Brunswick Scientific (NBS) has introduced two new benchtop
incubator shakers, the first in a range of eight new models
replacing the original C-Line. The shakers have been designed to
allow reproducible results all the way down...
A new generation of drugs that target specific areas of the body
has created new challenges for dissolution testing, as many recent
active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) are poorly soluble in
traditional media and need novel testing...
As financial pressures continue to plague the pharma industry,
firms should consider taking more advantage of sourcing staff in
cheap labour markets in order to save a buck.
Sanofi pasteur's vaccine manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania, where
half of America's influenza vaccines are made, has been served with
a warning letter by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA),
asking for measures to...
New guidelines for the import and manufacture of medical devices in
India have now come into effect, aimed at increasing world
confidence in medical devices made in the region.
ChemGenex has teamed up with MolecularMD in a deal that focuses on
a drug resistance mutation seen in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML)
patients, which has seen these sufferers no longer respond to
Gleevec, a popular cancer treatment.
Intec Pharma has enlisted two North American dosage form
manufacturers to make "supergenerics" using its new method of oral
drug delivery that can transform existing drugs into more powerful
therapies.
A report on the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) enforcement
record by US Democratic lawmakers has highlighted a plunge in the
number of warning letters the agency has sent to drug manufacturers
since 2000, citing several...
Specialty chemicals firm Degussa has launched a new hydrophobic
silica excipient which is particularly suitable for very
hygroscopic and cohesive powders as it can significantly improve
powder flow.
BioPartners has failed to bring its second biosimilar product into
Europe after the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal
Products (EMEA) issued a negative opinion on its hepatitis C drug,
citing characterisation, manufacturing...
Activotec makes available an entry-level Supercritical Fluid
Extractor (SFE) to suit routine analytical work in smaller
laboratories that might require many features typically found in
more costly SFE equipment.
French purification specialist Novasep has unveiled a new series of
preparative high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) columns
that are ideally suited for the purification of any amount of
product.
Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane (BIRI) has integrated Multisorb's
sorbent packets in its moisture prevention system, reducing costs,
decreasing downtime, and increasing line speed.
A Dutch trial of battery-powered radiofrequency identification
(RFID) tags in standard medication blister packages, sponsored by
Novartis, has demonstrated the benefits the technology can have for
patient compliance but also the prohibitive...
Vertex Pharmaceutcals was one of a number of pharma and biotech
companies to attend the PiperJaffray healthcare conference in
London last week, which gave international companies the
opportunity to provide pipeline updates.
BioPharmaceutical company Protherics, were on hand at the
PiperJaffray conference providing pipeline and company updates to a
audience of investors and analysts. The company are coming off the
back of a successful deal with Astrazeneca...
Determined to slash operational costs, Eli Lilly has decided to
shut down its pill and tablet manufacturing plant in Basingstoke
and boost production in its remaining three dry product sites.
Data management solutions provider Phase Forward used the recent
Drug Information Association (DIA) to unveil a new programme
tailored to help clinical research organizations (CROs) of all
sizes optimise their eClinical profitability.
FFF Enterprises has just been awarded a new contract to distribute
GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK's) flu vaccine in the US, making it the
largest flu vaccine distributor for the second year running.
A new Phase I clinical services company, Roanoke Clinical Research
(RCR), has been formed to relieve pressure in the biopharma
industry as it continues to face bottlenecks in early stage
research and struggles to move forward fast...
After launching its flagship oral insulin spray in Ecuador last
December, Generex is finally gearing up to take on big pharma in
the global non-injectable insulin arena and has picked Cardinal
Health to help meet manufacturing demands.
Software provider, PDS Pathology Data Systems have announced it can
now provide Internet access to its specialised post-mortem
functionality system to users that include University research
departments, CROs, Biotechs and smaller...
Hyclone has unveiled a new single-use bioreactor at the BioLOGIC
exhibition in Amsterdam which promises the same performance with
traditional stainless steel bioreactors but with the benefits of
single use in which all the contact...
Roche took the opportunity to reassure investors and analysts as it
outlined its plans to deal with the impending threat to Avastin and
Herceptin. Roche's new indications for cancer treatments suggest
that its oncology portfolio...
Microsoft has awarded Pfizer with its Pharmaceutical and Life
Sciences Innovation Award for its manufacturing management system
which revolutionalises the scaling up and monitoring of active
pharmaceutical ingredient (API) production,...
Innovata is moving forward with its dry powder pulmonary insulin
inhaler, which it claims has a formulation superior to Exubera,
gearing up for Phase II clinical trials and anticipating a new
partnership deal by the end of the year.
Vintage Pharmaceuticals, a generic drugmaker with plants in North
Carolina and Alabama, has pleaded guilty to 19 felony counts of
producing adulterated drugs and introducing them into interstate
commerce.
Lipoxen have developed a new vaccine technology that it claims will
pave the way for more effective and safer vaccines and greater
manufacturing flexibility. They are now using the technology to
make the world's first hepatitis...
As the shortage of cartridges of its injectable diabetes drug
Byetta reaches critical levels, Amylin Pharmaceuticals is seeking
to expand manufacturing capacity and is exploring a nasal spray
formulation of the medicine with drug...
The worldwide market for supply chain management (SCM) software is
tipped to grow 8.6 per cent a year to reach over $8.3m (€6.8m) in
2010, driven by the need to streamline supply chain processes and
improve productivity.
Pharmaceutical wholesalers in Europe need to evolve to meet the
changing pharma market and a world of opportunity awaits for those
willing to think beyond their traditional business model and move
to compete in the outsourcing arena.
Nalgene introduces its sterile disposable shaker flask that
incorporates a larger volume capacity for single-use. Its design
aims to reduce the risk of cross contamination.
Two French clinical research organisations (CROs), PharmaScan and
ClinicalLand, have joined forces to accelerate their growth and
reinforce their presence in the competitive clinical trials sector.
Tests have begun on a new bird flu vaccine that its US developer
MedImmune hopes will prove more effective and provide several
advantages over current injectable flu vaccines in the event of a
bird flu pandemic.
Asterand has announced the formation of a partnership with Rubicon
Genomics to develop new cancer diagnostic tests that identify the
DNA methylation mechanism that causes cells to become cancerous
making the assignment of treatment...
Alpharma has asked one of the largest manufacturers of bulk active
pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in China, Zhejiang Hisun
Pharmaceutical, to help it double its capacity of making
vancomycin.
Researchers have developed a new nanocarrier system for the
delivery of drugs which contains iron and so can be directed by a
magnetic field to specific areas of the body, a technology which
could prove invaluable in the treatment...
Peakdale Molecular has taken the opportunity to expand its
capabilities and capacity extending the services it can provide to
further support customers' drug discovery challenges.
Analytik Jena has started production of its first analytical
apparatus to be made entirely in China representing a new venture
for the company as it aims to advance into a market that has
experienced unprecedented growth in the analytical...
UK-based Malvern Instruments has revealed that its next-generation
particle size analysis system is being used by French contract
manufacturer Valois in the validation of its unique nasal spray
device.
Applied Biosystems (AB) has given drug researchers a new software
application in thier quest to more quickly and accurately screen
drug candidates, which can be further developed into promising new
treatments.
