While the procedure for designating drugs for orphan diseases has
improved dramatically in the EU, further progress must be made,
says EU biotech group
UK informatics company Inpharmatica has added a whole new suite of
ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion)
capabilities to its drug lead optimisation services with the
purchase of a lab and intellectual property...
Tepnel Life Sciences sees its shares soar after announcing the
first sale of its Nucleopure DNA purification system to an unnamed
UK pharmaceuticals group
Canadian chromatography and mass spectrometry specialist Waters has
introduced a series of new products at the ongoing ASMS meeting in
Montreal, Canada
Bruker Daltonics has forged an alliance with the US Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory to develop and commercialise mass
spectrometry for high-throughput proteomics research
Caliper Technologies has announced its intention to acquire
laboratory automation, liquid handling and robotics specialist
Zymark in a deal valued at around $71 million in cash and stock.
Millennium Pharmaceuticals has said that it plans to cut around 600
jobs and wind down some of its manufacturing operations as it seeks
to reach profitability by 2006
Nature Technology has launched an improved delivery technology for
DNA vaccines that is now available for license by companies working
in this fast-growing area
Just over a year after acquiring the FSG business from Vivendi for
$360 million (€307m), Pall Corp has reported a healthy hike in
fiscal third-quarter sales and profits and once again raised its
earnings forecast for 2003.
The European Union's Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer
Affairs Council agreed on 2 June not to press ahead with proposals
to implement a mandatory centralised marketing authorisation scheme
for all medicines.
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.
One of Pfizer Global R&D's major research facilities, based in
Nerviano, Italy, has signed an expanded agreement with PerkinElmer
in which the latter will provide repair, maintenance and validation
services for sophisticated...
A new collaboration sees Hitachi Software Engineering (HSW)
acquiring the rights from German MWG-Biotech to produce DNA
microarrays for sale solely in Japan.
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...
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).
IBM in the UK and US based IDBS, a provider of data management,
analysis and decision-making software for drug discovery, this week
announced a global strategic alliance.
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',...
Total revenues for the four emerging sectors of protein array,
crucial antibody array, peptide biochip, protein biochip, and
solution bead/particle array were estimated at $90 million
(€83million) in 2002, writes market analyst Business...
LION bioscience this week launched the latest version of its open
integration platform, LION DiscoveryCenter 3.2, with an enhanced
chemistry functionality for integrated drug discovery.
UK biotechnology bellwether Celltech has emerged victorious in the
bidding battle for Oxford GlycoSciences. OGS reluctantly gave in to
Celltech's pressure on 11 April, after the latter firm bought
additional holdings which brought...
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...
US company PerkinElmer was presented with the 2003 Analytical
Instrumentation Company of the Year award by market research
company Frost & Sullivan in a ceremony last night.
Amersham Biosciences has launched a new DNA Amplification Kit,
GenomiPhi, which it says can simplify the DNA preparation process
and enable high-quality DNA to be prepared from a limited amount of
biological material.
Iceland-based deCODE genetics announced this week that AstraZeneca
has entered into an agreement to purchase its RoboHTC automated
protein crystallography platform, earmarked for AstraZeneca's drug
discovery sites in Alderley...
Genetics-based drug discovery company CompleGen is to supply Berlex
Biosciences, a US affiliate of German company Schering, with a high
throughput assay system for discovery of compounds active against a
novel target identified by...
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...
Anglo-German company Proteome Sciences has developed a new reagent
that it claims can dramatically enhance the sensitivity of mass
spectrometers for the identification of proteins.
Scientists in Australia report this week that they have developed a
powerful software modelling tool, MolSAR, which could have the
potential to reduce drug development costs by up to €28 million per
drug.
Dharmacon, a US supplier of RNA and RNA-interference research
products, announced today it has launched Cell Cycle siARRAY, a
collection of ready-to-use siRNA duplexes designed to knock down
112 genes involved in cell cycle regulation.
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...
Ireland's Elan Corp has inked a deal with Ingenium Pharmaceuticals
of Germany that will see the companies apply Ingenium's functional
genomics technologies to the discovery and development of novel
therapeutics for pain...
British Biotech, once the darling of the UK biotechnology industry
but now suffering the after-effects of a string of major drug
development failures, is having another go at bolstering its
pipeline via a merger with fellow UK company...
A series of new flow cytometry products will soon hit the market
with the announcement yesterday from US companies BD Biosciences
and Molecular Probes that, following a recent license agreement, BD
Biosciences Pharmingen has launched...
Specialists in cellular analysis Cyntellect this week announced the
issuance of a new patent covering the company's Laser Enabled
Analysis and Processing (LEAP) technology platform.
SC Biosciences is to be the exclusive distributor of sensitive
tools for drug discovery with the announcement this week that it
will distribute in vivo imaging technology in Japan for US company
Xenogen corporation.
Applied Biosystems group, the world's number one maker of
gene-analysing equipment, warned on Tuesday that it would report
lower-than-expected fiscal third-quarter revenue and earnings due
to deteriorating business conditions.
Drug target validation has become the critical step in maintaining
profitability for the pharmaceutical industry, claims a new report
from market research company Business Communications. Drug
developers must accelerate identification...
Aclara BioSciences, a US company involved in tools for drug
discovery, this week introduced new toxicology applications that
expand the capabilities of the eTag Assay System.
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.
Developer of life science tools Bruker Daltonics has introduced a
new research instrument for proteomics research at the laboratory
science exhibition Pittcon, taking place in the US this week.
In its first progress report since adopting the EU strategy on life
sciences and biotechnology in 2002, the European Commission
yesterday indicated that the risk of diverging policies in Member
States could seriously hamper the effectiveness...
Drug development and biomedical company Thuris and Italian
pharmaceutical company Sigma-Tau Industrie Farmaceutiche Riunite on
Monday announced an expansion of their ongoing research
collaboration to develop compounds to combat brain...
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.