A biomechanical pathway which is key to the specific allergic
response suffered by those with asthma has been shown to induce a
specific enzyme which if neutralised, could eliminate the
inflammation and hyperresposiveness of the airway,...
The safety of thiomersal, a preservative that is used in vaccines,
has come under scrutiny once again after a study found that it
causes damage to nerve cells in newborn mice.
The US Food and Drug Administration has suggested removing
essential-use status for metered dose inhalers (MDIs) used to
deliver the asthma drug albuterol (salbutamol) which use
chlorofluorocarbon propellants.
Switzerland's Chemspeed has launched a new workstation that allows
up to six reactions to be carried out in parallel, which should
speed up process R&D.
Scottish biotech firm CXR biosciences and Edinburgh's Roslin
Institute have entered into a collaboration with Geron to develop a
new technique that promises to reduce the need to test drugs on
animals.
Invitrogen subsidiary Protometrix is gearing up to launch a
microarray containing nearly all the 6,200 or so proteins in the
proteome of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a commonly
used organism in genomics research.
US-based healthcare conglomerate Cardinal Health has stepped up its
presence in the European market with the appointment of a new
management team for the region based in the UK.
The UK subsidiary of Japan's Yokogawa has introduced a new FT-NIR
(Fourier transform near infrared) analyser that runs as a
stand-alone system, with no need for an attached PC, making it
easier to install in a process environment.
French ingredients company Roquette has been granted a US patent
for a way to make mannitol a suitable carrier excipient - or
pulverulent - for active pharmaceutical ingredients in hard filled
capsules, reports Phil Taylor.
French drug delivery specialist Ethypharm has won a contract to
apply its melt-in-the-mouth Flashtab technology to two new
over-the-counter analgesic products that will be marketed in Japan
by Kowa.
Researchers have isolated a protein that appears to be behind the
curious phenomenon that severe dietary restruction can extend the
lifespan of some organisms. The protein is thought to control
whether a mammal stores fat or sheds...
UK encapsulation specialist BioProgress has signed a license option
deal for a liquid fill technology with the consumer healthcare
division of US drug major Wyeth. If taken to fruition, the
agreement would mark the company's...
This week has seen three companies put forward different solutions
to the topical issue of improving the yield of proteins and nucleic
acids made by biomanufacturing technologies.
Despite advances made in sustained delivery drug delivery
technologies in recent years, a problem still persists in trying to
obtain controlled release of a wide variety of medications that
have only a narrow absorption window in...
3M will no longer manufacture triflic acid and is closing down its
electrochemical fluorination process at the company's Cottage
Grove, site in Illinois, US.
Hospira, the hospital products company spun out of Abbott
Laboratories earlier this year, has acquired a manufacturing
facility that will help it grow its pharmaceutical injectable and
outsourcing business.
The annual US Biotechnology Industry Association event started this
weekend in San Francisco with the usual showcase of new
biopharmaceuticals and other technologies. But aside from supplying
the drugs of the future, the biotechnology...
Drug therapies that focus on the vascular endothelial growth factor
(VEGF) in treating advanced or metastasised cancer represents a
huge slice of drug treatments currently in development. This
molecular target paves the way for...
Quadro has introduced a new powder disperser designed to
incorporate difficult to wet powders into a liquid more
efficiently, cutting the amount of powder required by a third and
dramatically reducing batch times.
Neuro3d has started trials of its orally active phosphodiesterase-4
(PDE4) inhibitor in depression, resurrecting the use of this class
of drug in this indication.
A number of large pharmaceutical and food manufacturers are
piloting a new data logger with radio frequency identification
(RFID) technology that is designed to track and monitor the
conditions a product is kept in.
Novartis generics subsidiary Sandoz has continued its expansion
with the purchase of Canadian generic drugmaker Sabex Holdings for
$565 million (€459m) in cash, bringing in a new range of injectable
products.
Recently formed US company WaferGen has acquired licenses to three
labs-on-a-chip developed at the Technical University of Delft in
the Netherlands that could be on the market in the next two years.
The well established Pharmaceutical Substances database of active
pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), published by Germany's Thieme,
is now available for the first time in an online format.
Fisher Scientific subsidiary Perbio last week opened a new facility
in the UK to manufacture its Hyclone range of cell culture
equipment and mediathat ramps up its liquid production capacity by
a factor of four, reports Phil Taylor.
In the build up to the American Society of Clinical Oncology's
(ASCO) annual conference, drug companies from around the world have
been showcasing potential drug treatments, with a number of new
molecular targets for cancer,...
It has been eight years since Molecular Devices first introduced
its FLIPR (Fluorometric Imaging Plate Reader) onto the market to
answer the need for a detection device that could handle cells.
Drug re-engineering company Eiffel Technologies will add to its
existing project in improving insulin delivery with the start of
clinical trials of an in-house product early next year, writes
Wai Lang Chu.
The Pharmaceutical Services Division (PSD) of US chemicals firm
Solutia is planning a charge into the market for supplying drug
conjugates, which are becoming more and more common in the
treatment of diseases such as cancer.
Researchers have taken a step forward in the development of a
system for making unlimited quantities of antibody-based drugs for
human applications in cattle.
German contract manufacturer Strathmann Biotec has won a contract
to manufacture clinical supplies a new type of cancer treatment in
development at Sweden's Active Biotech.
Human clinical trials involving an Ebola vaccine took a step closer
after Dutch biotechnology firm Crucell announced a single dose of
its Ebola vaccine had successfully protected monkeys during trial
tests.
Canadian company MIV Therapeutics has been awarded a US patent for
a coating technology for medical devices and drug encapsulation
based on hydroxyapatite, one of the major constituents of bone.
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 clear legal basis has been established for the first time which
will enable research institutions to use molecular biology
techniques for which provate companies have dominant patent
positions without signing away the rights to...
Cobra Biomanufacturing of the UK saw its losses halve in the first
half of the current fiscal year, in the face of continuing declines
in the market for contract manufacturing of plasmid DNA.
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.
Rhodia, the French speciality chemicals company, has expanded its
capability to produce N-2,3-trimethyl-2-isopropylbutanamide (more
commonly known as WS-23) with the recent addition of a second
production stream at its UK facility...
A new range of connector accessories for tubing used in the
manufacture of pharmaceuticals, designed to improve the safety of
processes that need high levels of containment, has been launched
by US company Colder Products Co.
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.
Innercap Technologies has developed a new capsule drug delivery
system that makes it possible to combine two incompatible drug
compounds into a single dosage unit.
Danish ingredients company Chr Hansen has ramped up its production
capacity in the US for its pharmaceutical products via a $10
million (€8.2m) expansion of its facilities in Stoughton in the US.
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...
