Sanofi Aventis will pay Pfizer €30m ($41m) for a former Exubera manufacturing plant in Frankfurt-Höchst, Germany that was due to be bought by inhaled insulin specialist MannKind.
CMO Kemwell is receiving technical assistance from Boehringer Ingelheim for the construction of its new biotech facility, which is designed to marry European technology with Indian low cost manufacturing.
MDS Pharma Services is renovating and expanding its Taiwanese discovery pharmacology operation in response to growing global demand for work performed in Asia.
US genomic services specialist Cogenics has launched a new DMET analysis service that it believes will improve patient genotyping during clinical trials, helping drug industry sponsors target the development of new products and reduce costs.
Microsoft is ramping up its efforts in drug R&D for personalised medicine through the acquisition of genomic analysis technology developed by Seattle, US firm Rosetta Biosoftware.
JAPM and SABEQ have launched initiatives to help companies in Jordan bring their pharma packaging and manufacturing practices inline with established markets.
IT solutions firm Merge Healthcare has won the race to buy eClinical specialist etrials, beating previous suitor Bio-Imaging Technologies whose takeover bid collapsed on Monday.
GE Healthcare hopes its new modular validation platform (MVP) will change the way drugmakers think about how they create new plants and bring existing manufacturing facilities up to code.
Canadian CRO MDS Pharma Services (MDS) is to sell its Phase II-IV trial business to US counterpart INC Research for $50m (€35m) and focus on providing discovery and early clinical development services.
SAFC is seeking to improve its large-scale supply of pharma raw materials through a partnership with Cherokee Pharmaceuticals, which will use its expertise to ensure the products meet cGMP standards.
German glass making giant Gerresheimer has opened a new packaging plant in Danyang, China, further indicating its plans to grow in the world’s fifth largest pharmaceutical market.
PRA International has opened a drug safety centre in São Paulo, Brazil, expanding its presence in Latin America and bringing its array of services to a new market.
Power outages cost India $9.2bn (€6.5bn) in 2008, according to a report, with the disruptions causing direct losses in numerous sectors, including pharma and biotech.
US Patient recruitment specialist BBK Worldwide has set up a unit in Osaka, Japan to improve enrolment rates for studies in the country and help local pharma and biotech firms cut costs.
GSK and Pfizer’s HIV joint venture (JV) may be subject to an investigation by UK competition watchdog the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), according to various media reports.
US CRO Ockham Development group will start providing customers with data capture and analysis solutions developed by etrials under a new, five year licensing agreement.
Stiffer penalties for counterfeiters could be counterproductive in less developed countries (LDC) and “entrench the corrupt symbiotic relationship between counterfeiters, lawmakers and officials”, according to a report
There has been “tremendous interest” in Fate Therapeutics’ Catalyst programme, which gives access to induced iPS cell technology as part of collaborative relationship between numerous companies.
Singapore’s prudent spending means it can view the economic crisis as an opportunity, according to an executive director of its EDB, using saved funds to progress beyond its struggling rivals.
in-Pharmatechnologist's Nick Taylor looks back on BIO 2009, an event at which uncertainty about the development of the biotechnology industry’s future shape dominated proceedings.
HEM Pierre Vimont, Ambassador of France to the US, was at BIO 2009 talking about the measures his nation have taken to attract biotechs, including the introduction of the "most favourable R&D tax in Europe".
Canadian contract services group Patheon will roll out a cell based assay offering that it says will help the biopharmaceutical sector advance the development of the next generation of biologic drugs.
UK CRO Quotient Bioresearch has bought a clinical research facility in Edinburgh, Scotland, which in conjunction with an existing unit in Nottingham, England will serve as a base for its new Quotient Clinical unit.
Fine chemicals firm Minakem believes that manufacturing capacity added by its newly acquired API plant in Dunkirk, France will reduce costs and help it compete on a global scale.
WuXi PharmaTech’s operating income fell by 25 per cent in Q1, in part because of an 81 per cent drop in revenues from manufacturing, but the company reconfirmed its 2009 financial guidance.
The increasingly global clinical trial sector demands more effective ethical and regulatory scrutiny according to a study published in the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).
US drug firms’ qualification of overseas API vendors will be subject to increased FDA scrutiny in the coming years according to a new industry report by analysts Hogan & Hartson (H&H).
PDI posted a larger operating loss in Q1 2009 than in the previous year, with the company blaming the decline on the expiration, termination and postponement of contracts.
CRO Encorium has unveiled plans to sell both its US business and its Finnish subsidiary Encorium Oy just weeks after posting a gloomy set of Q1 financials dominated by a 15 per cent drop in net revenues.
UK software group Cisiv has unveiled a web-based EDC platform, Baseline Plus, which is specifically tailored to meet the demands of post market trials.
Definitive FDA guidance on adaptive trials cannot come soon enough for the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors, according to Perceptive Informatics (PI).
CRO Eurotrials has brought in US business consultant AmeriStart to publicise and sell its trial services to pharmaceutical and biotech firms in North America.
Charles River Laboratories (CRL) has bucked the CRO sector trend and reaffirmed its forecasts for 2009, citing an improved order book and better pricing as the reasons for its relative optimism.
French drug major Sanofi Aventis has unveiled plans for a €200m ($268m) biotechnology investment at its manufacturing facility in Vitry-sur-Seine near Paris, under its collaborative Biolaunch project.
Pharmafreight and Kryotrans have teamed up to offer a one-way, temperature-controlled shipping service that they claim will help pharmaceutical exporters cut costs and boost efficiency.
Perceptive Informatics has expanded its offering for trials involving Alzheimer's disease with a new medical imaging method, which it claims produces higher quality, reproducible and regulatory compliant assessments.
Greek authorities have banned the export of the anti-virals Relenza and Tamiflu to prevent the country’s stockpile being sold off through parallel trade as global demand for the drugs increases on concerns about a H1N1 influenza pandemic.
Two recombinant human albumins made by Novozymes' biopharma division have become the first to comply with the USP-NF's recently revised excipient monograph.
US contract research organisation (CRO) Encorium has reported $2m in new and repeat business deals on the same day it posted gloomy Q4 figures and cited the "drop in demand" refrain heard across the trial sector.
Pfizer is monitoring opportunities in follow-on biologics and continuing to look for small to mid-sized deals as it plans for life without Lipitor, global revenues of which fell by 13 per cent in Q1.
US software giant Microsoft has unveiled its new Amalga Life Sciences data aggregation and modelling platform in a bid to capitalise on the demand for IT infrastructure solutions currently sweeping the drug R&D and trials sectors.
Novozymes Biopharma is building a new Bacillus-based hyaluronic acid (bHA) production facility in China to meet “increasing demand” for the substance that has drug delivery applications.
Novartis, Roche, GSK and Sanofi Pasteur are poised to start the months of work required to make a vaccine for the swine flu virus that, according to an AFP interview with Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova, is linked to 103 deaths in Mexico.
German CRO Clinicalprojects International (CPI) will begin providing its customers with the TrialMaster EDC solution though a deal with developer OmniComm.
Coast IRB has decided to close after a probe by US Government Accountability Office (GAO) and subsequent FDA warning letter resulted in the loss of “several key customers”.
