Industry news in brief - week 40
LabTechnologist.com brings you a round up of recent industry news, with developments at Affymetrix, Celera, deltaDOT, Eksigent, Farfield, Nanogen and Olympus UK.
Archives for October 1, 2007
Weekly Comment
FDA told its safety monitoring of clinical trials not good enough
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been called into question again after the release of a damning report, this time suggesting the agency is inadequate in its safety monitoring of clinical trials.
Biogen antibody regenerates MS nerves
Biogen Idec is pushing forward with a therapeutic antibody that can turn myelin producing cells back on and so could reverse the damaging effects of multiple sclerosis (MS).
Genzyme, Bioenvision merger on the rocks
A major shareholder in Bioenvision could seriously compromise the biotech company's proposed $345m (€242m) takeover by Genzyme as it is preparing to vote against the merger arguing the offer is too low.
Mitsubishi/Tanabe merger makes Japan's fifth biggest drugmaker
The merger between Mitsubishi Chemical Holding's pharmaceutical unit and Tanabe Seiyaku has been completed and the new entity is looking to expand its presence outside Japan and create a more efficient R&D and manufacturing machine.
Discovery Labs finally sorts out manufacturing issues
Discovery Laboratories could see the end of its struggle to launch its Surfaxin (lucinactant) drug on the US market as it has finally resolved the manufacturing issues that have plagued the product for months.
Drug theft costs industry up to $1bn a year
Pharmaceutical companies not only have to face the consequences of a burgeoning counterfeit drug black market but have to contend with the theft of their own manufactured drugs for illicit uses, according to a US consumer advocacy group.
ABI and Olink to push protein detection sensitivity
Applied Biosystems (ABI) has exclusively licensed Olink Bioscience's proximity ligation assay (PLA) technology that enables the correlation of gene and protein expression data.