Germany-based drugmaker Merck KGaA has launched a major
restructuring of its R&D activities after shelving two of its
early-stage diabetes product candidates, EML 16336 and IDD 676.
A science and technology advisory group has called on the Irish
government to ensure that the country remains competitive in the
pharmaceutical and chemical industries by developing R&D
operations and, in particular, fostering...
Reports in Ireland have suggested that Germany's Schwarz Pharma is
planning to scale back its operations in Shannon and cut its
workforce. The company is allegedly planning to reduce its Irish
workforce by 70 to around 180 staff.
US biopharmaceutical firm Acceptys has licensed an immortal
humanised cell line from Columbia University, which will allow it
to discover and produce fully human monoclonal antibodies and other
human proteins for use as therapeutic...
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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,...
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...
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.
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...
Prominent US genomics Robert L. Strausberg, who directs the
National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Cancer Genomics office, has been
named as vice president for research at The Institute for Genomic
Research (TIGR).
Engineers in the US are one step closer to mass-producing
therapeutic proteins needed by today's pharmaceutical industry.
Researchers claim to have achieved a major milestone in their
efforts to effectively produce human therapeutics...
The biotechnology industry in the state of British Columbia in
Canada could double the number of companies, attract large
revenue-generating biotechnology firms and create more than 5,000
new jobs within five years, says a strategic...
A prominent US law professor from Stanford University has called
for an international treaty on sharing scientific and technological
information, to be based on the arrangements already agreed for
free trade under the World Trade...
Billion dollar science and technology company Dowpharma, a business
unit of The Dow Chemical company, has announced new capabilities in
catalytic asymmetric hydroformylation (AHF) of olefins for
applications in the development and...
Akzo Nobel business unit Diosynth, which specialises in the
production of complex active biopharmaceutical ingredients for the
pharmaceutical sector, has developed a new method for manufacturing
synthetic peptides that, it claims,...
An expert group on intellectual property rights (IPRs) has warned
that rules governing the protection of copyrights, database rights
and patents hamper scientific endeavour and must be changed 'in the
interest of society',...
Researchers have now completed the sequencing of the human genome,
to an accuracy of 99.999 per cent, nearly three years after the
first 'working' draft was published to great fanfare in June 2000.
The achievement comes...
The European Commission has earmarked €13 million from the budget
of the EU's Sixth Research Framework Programme (FP6) (2002-2006) to
promote and facilitate research co-operation with the 13 associated
candidate countries for...
As the lead story today on In-Pharmatechnologist.com
highlights, the European brain-drain is far from slowing down with
the US continuing to attract researchers and entrepreneurs. A fact
that has had, and will continue to have, a...
Until recently nanotechnologists -- scientists who build devices
and materials one atom or molecule at a time -- concentrated almost
entirely on electronics, computers, telecommunications, and
materials manufacture. Now biomedical...
The Portuguese Minister for Science and Higher Education, Pedro
Lynce, confirmed his government's commitment to investing in
science with the announcement today that the ministry is
considering opening 20 new Ciência Viva (Science...
The Eurobarometer 2002 survey on 'Europeans and biotechnology'
reveals that despite the impression that Europeans are sceptical
about this technology, the majority are optimistic that
biotechnololgy will improve our way...
There has been 'unprecedented development' in terms of the
Community's research policy in the last year claims the European
Commission's 2002 annual report on technological research and
development (RTD) in 2001.
A collaboration between Cenix BioScience of Germany and the USA's
Ambion has been formed to co-develop and market the first
commercially-available, human genome-wide library of small
interfering RNA sequences. RNA interference...
Pharmaceutical researchers used to begin their evaluation of drug
leads by looking at affinity and potency, but a
genomics/informatics-based research culture is now growing which is
starting to impinge on this classical mode, says...
Venture capital investments in biotechnology and medical device
companies combined to total $4.7 billion (€4.4bn) in 2002, or 22
per cent of all investing, representing the highest proportion in
seven years, according to the MoneyTree...
The prospect of using chicken eggs as commercial 'biofactories' for
the production of protein-based drugs has moved a step closer with
the announcement of a study showing that transgenic cockerels can
pass on an introduced...
A new approach to identifying patterns in gene expression analysis
has been shown to be more effective than the most popular method in
a joint Penn State and University at Buffalo study, write US
scientists this week.
Scientists in the US report this week that they have developed a
new technology that increases the amount of vitamin C in plants,
including grains, by increasing the amount of the enzyme that is
responsible for recycling vitamin C.
US outsourcing company Cardinal Health is to provide alternative
drug formulation development and delivery capabilities for the
biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, the company announced
this week.
The UK Medicines Control Agency has published a new guidance on
best practice in drug labelling and packaging which is part of a
broader Department of Health programme aimed at achieving a 40 per
cent cut in medication errors by 2005....
Roche Vitamins is to start production of pure epigallocatechin
gallate (EGCG), the active compound in green tea, at a new
production plant in Shanghai. Annual output is expected to be more
than 40 tons.
An Edinburgh-based marine biotech business has been given a £50,000
(€73 000) boost in its bid to scour tidal areas such as rock pools
to find and develop new drugs and antibiotics, including a new
compound found to be active against...
In the second news of the day on a European life science company,
DSM announced this week that from now on it will supply
technologies and services for the initial development phases of new
medicines - supplementing its existing service...
Japanese company Kaken Pharmaceutical and US Elitra Pharmaceuticals
said yesterday that they are to collaborate on a multi-year
research project for the discovery and development of novel
anti-fungal drugs.
Danish company Novozymes announced yesterday that the US Department
of Energy (DOE) has approved the third year of funding for
Novozymes' three-year subcontract to develop more cost-efficient
enzymes for ethanol production.
Isis Innovation, the wholly-owned technology transfer company of
Oxford University, reports this week that researchers at the
university's Inorganic Chemistry laboratory have found that they
can intercalate a range of pharmaceutically...
France needs to invest more in the emerging 'revolutionary' science
of nanotechnologies if it is to remain competitive in this
promising field, a French parliamentary committee has recommended.
Large Scale Biology Corporation (LSBC) has started a research
collaboration with Novozymes Biotech to apply LSBC's gene shuffling
and molecular evolution technologies to genes of interest to
Novozymes Biotech.
The chemical cousin of vitamin A is thought to restore production
of a key protein, which has been damaged by cigarettes in the lungs
of former smokers, and protects the cells against lung cancer,
according to new findings published...
