US pharmaceutical major Pfizer reinforced its position as the
world's largest drug company in 2002 after putting in sales of
$29.45 billion (€25.12 bn) in 2002, a hike of 11 per cent over the
prior year, according to a new analysis...
Belgian pharmaceutical and chemicals firm Solvay expects to launch
a new version of its Influvac brand flu vaccine, based on a novel
cell-based production process, in 2005. The speed of the new
process means that a vaccine can be...
Sweden's Amarin Development has been commissioned by GEA
Farmaceutisk Fabrik, a Danish subsidiary of German pharmaceutical
company HEXAL, to develop a formulation of one of its candidate
compounds.
Drug delivery company Atrix Laboratories confirmed this week that
the German regulatory authority, Bundesinstitut fur Arzneimittel
und Medizinprodukte (BfArM), had recently completed a successful
inspection of Atrix's manufacturing...
BASF AG's Fine Chemicals division is expanding production of
pharmaceutical active ingredients with the construction of a new
plant at its site in Minden, Germany. A spokesman for the company
told In-pharmatechnologist.com that...
New bulk drug manufacturing facilities, worth a total of around
€123 million (£90 million), were officially opened this week at
AstraZeneca's Avlon Works near Bristol in the UK.
As this edition of In-pharmatechnologist.com goes online, the US
Food and Drug Administration is convening the inaugural meeting of
its Advisory Committee for Pharmaceutical Science's Manufacturing
Subcommittee.
An international conference serving global centres of excellence
for biotechnology, so-called 'bio-technopoles,' life science parks
and 'bio-incubators' will take place ahead of the 7th European
Biotech Crossroads...
BASF Plant Science, the plant biotechnology subsidiary of chemical
giant BASF, has entered into an agreement with Cellectis,
specialists in genome engineering and a recent spin-off from the
Institut Pasteur, that will provide BASF...
The Smart Active Labels Consortium is to present its first seminar,
titled "Smart Active Labels for Temperature Tracking: Shaping
the Future of Food/Pharmaceutical Distribution," on June 10 -
11 in Chicago, US.
The proposed sale of Roche vitamins to Dutch firm DSM is to go
through second phase merger investigations by the European
Commission due to competition concerns in the feed enzymes market.
Swiss intermediates and fine chemical company Lonza said today it
is to cut around 500 jobs mainly in Europe and the US as part of a
restructuring programme to reduce the negative effects of the
current economy on most of its business...
Attendance at SupplySide East earlier this month was slightly up on
last year, according to organisers, and although there were few
product launches, the conference provided all the drama.
Thermo Electron Corp has presented a new range of instruments at
the ACHEMA meeting in Frankfurt, Germany, including what it says is
the world's first mass spectrometer to combine Ion Trap and Fourier
Transform Ion Cyclotron...
Cambridge Antibody Technology of the UK has signed up for a
non-exclusive licence to a technology, developed by Canada's
Chromos Molecular Systems, for the commercial manufacture of
biologics.
Celsis International of the UK, a specialist in diagnostic systems
to detect and measure microbial contamination for the
pharmaceutical, personal care and food industries, has signed up
Boots Manufacturing (BM) as a new customer.
Speciality chemicals company International Specialty Products (ISP)
continues its quest to expand the company's presence in the growing
personal care market segment with the news this week that it has
collaborated with biotech...
Netherlands-based drugs, coatings and chemical maker Akzo Nobel has
announced a €500 million divestment program and suggested that it
is unlikely to remain a player in all three of these sectors in the
long term.
UK-based vaccine maker PowderJect is now said to be in the latter
stages of takeover negotiations, with the interested party widely
tipped to be the USA's Chiron, rumoured to be proferring a bid
valuing the company at around...
Dutch life sciences company DSM has broken ground on a new site in
Montreal, Canada, set to become a large-scale biopharmaceuticals
plant. Phase one - at a cost of €100m - due for completion by 2005.
In the US this week, supplier of botanical extracts for the
pharmaceutical industry Pharmachem Laboratories announced that it
has acquired 'the largest botanical extraction facility in North
America, producing extracts for the...
Three major players will try to recover costs from Pan
Pharmaceuticals after Australia's largest ever medical products
recall, reports IndustrySearch.com.
An EU funded project is building the critical mass of knowledge
required to ensure that Europe meets the Lisbon objective of
becoming the world's most competitive knowledge-based economy by
2010, reports Cordis.
The launch of newer technology products with a wide range of
applications and the facility to deliver proteins, peptides, and
large molecules is expected to rake in market revenues, according
to a new report from market analysts Frost...
Strasbourg, France-based Aventis has signed a research, option and
license agreement with Vivalis of the USA for the manufacture of
vaccine candidates using avian stem cell technology.
Despite a testing global economic climate, sales remained steady
and earnings before interest and taxes rose for German speciality
chemicals company Degussa in the first quarter of 2003. But guarded
optimism remains for 2003.
The European Commission has proposed new regulations allowing
Member States to grant aid for research and development (R&D)
to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), without having to
first apply for clearance from the Commission,...
Spotlight on the home of the celebrated pork pie in England, with
the annoucement this week that Melton Mowbray-based Bridgehead
Technologies and Pharmalicensing - two biopharmaceutical business
development companies - are to merge.
US manufacturer of vitamins, minerals, herbs and supplements
D&E Pharmaceuticals, has launched a contract manufacturing
services initiative, principally aimed at small to medium sized
nutraceutical suppliers.
US zuChem, a development-stage company that focuses on
commercialising manufacturing processes for glycochemicals, has
raised a considerable chunk of capital. Funds earmarked for
development of new sugar-based pharmaceutical intermediates.
BioInnovators, a USA-based consultancy serving the pharmaceutical
and biotech industries, has developed a new set of tools designed
to help pharmaceutical and dietary supplement companies understand
and improve cost and time efficiencies...
A new collaboration sees Hitachi Software Engineering (HSW)
acquiring the rights from German MWG-Biotech to produce DNA
microarrays for sale solely in Japan.
In a bid to improve efficiency and reduce costs UK in vitro
diagnostics company Axis-Shield is to shift the manufacture of
certain products from its site in Oslo, Norway to the company's
global headquarters in Dundee, Scotland.
ChemAxon, Hungarian company that provides software solutions for
biotechnology, has released its latest version of the Java database
engine enabling chemical communication across networks.
Operating profit for Danish enzyme company Novozymes improved
marginally in the first quarter of 2003, despite the impact of
unfavourable exchange rates. On the back of favourable developments
in net financials, the company reports...
UK life sciences group Amersham has reported first-quarter 2003
sales of £381 million (€544m), flat on the same period of 2002 but
up 6 per cent if unfavourable currency impacts and discontinued
product sales were excluded. The results...
Architects of the new instruments for the Sixth Framework Programme
will be heartened by news that a German report on the country's
networks of competence has concluded that such arrangements
stimulate innovation and, in turn,...
Research into genomes of the natural world took a step forward this
week with the announcement from Diversa corporation that it is to
jointly collaborate with the US Department of Energy's Joint Genome
Institute (JGI) to discover...
Danish Novo Nordisk plans to break ground on a €10 million
expansion of its insulin manufacturing facility in Clayton, US. The
company has awarded the contract to BE&K Engineering and Suitt
Construction for the 19,000-square-foot...
Outsourcing drug discovery functions is a rapidly growing trend
that has led to a nearly $2 billion (€1.7bn) industry worldwide,
according to a new study released this week by Kalorama
Information, and contract services in the field...
Balchem reported a small rise in net sales, up 3 per cent overall
during the first quarter of 2003, but said it was pleased with
results in light of the continued difficult economic environment.
Net earnings at the New York-based...
In a bid to increase European competitity in the global research
arena the European Commission announced new measures destined to
encourage public and private players across Europe to upgrade their
research effort.
Paris, France-based speciality chemicals company Rhodia has
reported a disappointing set of first quarter figures that reflects
what the firm describes as "a difficult economic and geopolitical
environment" and "a trough...
European Commission publishes table detailing progress it has made
in negotiating Protocols to the Europe Agreements on Conformity
Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products (PECAs) with a
number of accession countries.
Danish biotech company Fluxome Sciences , based at the Technical
University of Denmark, has entered a cooperation agreement with the
US biotech company Bio-Technical Resources concerning development
of optimised fermentation processes,...
UK packaging giant Rexam, a major producer of pharmaceutical
closures and one of the world's top five consumer packaging groups,
has introduced a range of LDPE and foil laminate bags and drum
liners manufactured in a cGMP compliant...
Amersham Biosciences has launched a new range of ultrafiltration
cassettes, under the Kvick brand, which it claims "help to speed up
bioprocessing timelines by offering an easy way to separate,
concentrate and diafilter biological...
The Netherlands-based organisation for Applied Scientific Research
(TNO) has signed an agreement with GlaxoSmithKline to collaborate
in the development and use of TNO's in vitro models of the
human gastrointestinal (or "GI")...
Ireland is developing a sound research base in the areas of
biotechnology and information and communication technologies (ICT),
despite institutional and funding barriers, concludes a recent
report by the national policy and advisory...
