Speciality chemical company Rohm and Haas has created a new
business unit, Advanced Biosciences, that specialises in the
production and purification of biopharmaceuticals. The new unit is
well placed to address the shortfall in production...
The European Commission has given the go-ahead for Germany to grant
a proposed €78 million in aid to help Merck KGaA build a new
biopharmaceuticals plant for the production of oncology products in
Jena, Thuringen.
Schering-Plough has extended its relationship with enterprise
content management specialist Documentum by taking out a
non-exclusive license to GXPharma, a product jointly developed by
Documentum and IBM.
Switzerland's Solvias AG, a specialist in scientific and technical
services and products based on synthesis and analysis, has reported
a healthy 20 per cent hike in 2002 sales to SF43.6 million
(€28.6m). The increase was driven...
US pharmaceutical major Eli Lilly has earmarked a hefty £220
million (€304 million) investment over the next four years in its
UK facilities, representing the largest investment by the firm in
any European country.
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...
BioForce Nanosciences of the USA has been granted a US patent
covering nanoscale arrays useful in identifying target materials or
for characterising molecular interaction events.
The German state of Saxony has implemented a $230 million,
five-year investment programme in a bid to nurture the development
of 'biosaxony,' centring on the establishment of regional
biotechnology hot spots in Leipzig and...
Baxter Healthcare and GlycoFi have entered into a two-year research
collaboration under which Baxter will evaluate the potential of
using the latter firm's fungal expression platform for the
production of human therapeutic proteins....
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.
Aventis has licensed in a new system from US firm SciQuest aimed at
enhancing the management of biological sample inventories at its
process development facilities in Frankfurt, Germany and
Vitry-sur-Seine in France. If this initial...
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.
"Tremendous advances in science and technology, along with the
shrinking period for patent exclusivity, are creating unprecedented
opportunities for the drug development industry," said a CEO
this week while discussing the...
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...
Swiss life science company Lonza, that earlier this week announced
imminent cutbacks and job losses, has settled a patent infringement
action with Nutrition 21, a US company that currently holds 22
patents for chromium compounds.
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.
An information day to discuss European partnering and funding
opportunities for small businesses in the biohealth sector will
take place on 11 June in Loos, France.
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.
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.
The Automation Partnership, a UK-based specialist in life science
automation systems, has launched a new low volume cell dispenser
for SelecT, the firm's automated cell culture system. The dispenser
was unveiled at the annual...
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.
Danish excipient manufacturer Chr. Hansen reported a drop in sales
for the group of 8 per cent to DKK 2,191 million for the first six
months of the year ended 28 February 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.
BioProgress, a UK company specialising in the manufacture of
non-gelatin capsules, looks set to become only the second UK
biopharmaceutical company to brave the equity markets this year
with a transfer of its listing Nasdaq's...
ChemAxon, Hungarian company that provides software solutions for
biotechnology, has released its latest version of the Java database
engine enabling chemical communication across networks.
A new validation package for pharmaceutical applications has hit
the market. Provided by Markem corporation, the new package is
intended to assist companies, in performing validation of new
coding equipment and to ensure that a specific...
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,...
