Novartis has been keen to shout about data published this week in
the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
that backs up claims that it has developed the first vaccine to
protect infants against the most common meningitis...
Pfizer, the world's largest pharma firm, has reached into its
pockets to buy CovX, a privately-held US biotech that specialises
in combining the strengths of peptides and antibodies into new
drugs.
Sanofi-Aventis recently admitted it needed to increase the number
of biotech compounds in its pipeline and now, true to its word, the
French pharma heavyweight has signed a big antibody deal with US
biotech Regeneron.
Researchers at Randox, UK, have developed a biochip that enables
the simultaneous measurement of 12 human cytokines from human serum
samples enabling cytokine studies to be conducted faster.
BioInvent and ThromboGenics' new anticancer antibody is poised to
enter clinical trials and could prove a serious rival to
VEGF-blocking drugs, due to fewer side-effects and less drug
resistance.
Japan's Kirin Holdings, best-known in the West as a beer maker,
will acquire a controlling stake in Kyowa Hakko, and thus get its
hands on what Kyowa claims are 'the ultimate antibody
warriors' against cancer.
SAFC has announced its plans to build a new high potency
conjugation suite at its Missouri manufacturing plant in order to
target pharma clients developing novel anti-cancer drug conjugates.
Dutch firm Crucell is hastily trying to reassure investors that its
popular cell line technology, PER.C6, was not to blame for the
failure of Merck's hotly touted HIV vaccine last week.
DBV Technologies is advancing into the realm of allergy treatment
and vaccine delivery using its Viaskin technology, which has
already proved successful as an allergy diagnostic.
Merck & Co. has stopped the Phase II trial of its V520 HIV
vaccine after interim results showed that the vaccine was not
effective and did not prevent infection.
AstraZeneca (AZ) is to assist Biovator in the development of its
in vitro test for identifying potential allergens that
could replace many experiments on animals.
Hope may be on the horizon in the quest for a preventative
hepatitis C virus (HCV) vaccine after scientists said they have
been able to identify and characterise the antibody responses to
the virus.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has opened the flood gates into the world of
personalised medicine with the world's first ever approved genetic
test, which predicts a life threatening side effect of one of its
antiretroviral drugs.
US-based biopharma company BioWa has found a way of increasing an
antibody's ability to initiate the complement immune system and
blow holes in tumour cells.
French firm Vivalis has announced the first data evaluating its
proprietary EBx cell lines for the production of monoclonal
antibodies (MAbs), with initial results suggesting high cytotoxic
properties in the resultant MAbs.
MedImmune has announced that interim Phase I results for its new
monoclonal antibody (MAb) suggest that it is well tolerated and
shows biological activity in adults with asthma.
Immune Targeting Systems (ITS) has received £4m (€5.9m) to aid in
its development of synthetic peptide vaccines for mutating viruses
such as influenza, HIV and Hepatitis C.
A new generation of therapeutic protein products has entered the
biopharma scene and are proving more efficient than antibodies when
using the same drug delivery systems.
The latest in a series of periodic roundups of drugs that have
moved from preclinical research into clinical testing via the
announcement of a Phase I trial or an application for a trial to
industry regulators.
Procter & Gamble (P&G) Pharmaceuticals has penned a deal
worth up to $511m (€375m) for a class of potential osteoporosis
drugs already well established as asthma therapies.
Australia is soon to boast the largest monoclonal antibody
production facility in the Southern Hemisphere, which will go some
way in alleviating the increasing demand for the biologic agents.
One of the most significant deals to take place in the vaccine
industry in the last ten years was signed late last night between
vaccine heavyweight Novartis and biotech firm Intercell.
Teva Pharmaceuticals has licensed a drug that could offer new hope
for both treating and preventing allergic reactions, according to
its award-winning developers.
A novel super adjuvant is to be put to the test as a new seasonal
flu vaccine enters Phase I trials, and is expected to offer
enhanced immunity and broader protection than other vaccines on the
market.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) outlined more details on the mechanism of its
anticancer drug ofatumumab - an antibody that was the subject of
the biggest ever pharma licensing deal.
Diverse manufacturer 3M has agreed to sell off another chunk of its
pharmaceuticals business, fourteen months after it decided to give
up on the 'very competitive' industry.
Histological evidence of tumour destruction has confirmed the
promise of Epeius Biotechnologies' Rexin-G as an effective targeted
gene therapy platform for metastatic cancer.
Suppressing granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor
(GM-CSF) to tackle inflammatory and autoimmune diseases is the
concept behind a new worldwide collaboration between
German-American biopharmaceutical company Micromet and...
Inovio Biomedical, a US company developing novel DNA
immunotherapies and other treatments based on electroporation
technology, has reported interim data from a Phase I/II clinical
study showing that its MedPulser system significantly...
An animal model used to evaluate vaccines could be "far more
useful" to predict potential side effects than current methods,
according to its developers, AMDL.
The significance of the aborted deal between GlaxoSmithKline and
Cobra has been exaggerated due to GSK's high profile and is not the
end of the world, the British contract manufacturer said.
It might look like a simple breath freshener dissolving mouth-strip
but the John Hopkins University innovation is just steps away from
cutting costs and saving thousands of lives from the deadly
rotavirus.
Specific stem cells are thought to be the origin of many, if not
all, cancers and although there are several drugs in clinical
trials, only small companies are currently conducting research in
the area.
New research suggests that it may be possible to design a vaccine
that will enable the immune system to 'remember' pathogens without
a preceding strong immune response.
A new method for generating large volumes of therapeutic antibodies
direct from Escherichia coli bacterium could knock weeks
off conventional mass-production processes that scale up to
mammalian cells, US researchers believe.
Positive results from trials of Cell Genesys's latest immunotherapy
treatment, GVAX, show that the therapy induces a broad immune
response in prostate cancer sufferers that is patient specific.
The seventh in a series of periodic roundups of drugs that have
moved from preclinical research into clinical testing via the
announcement of a Phase I trial or an application for a trial to
industry regulators.