Science and Enterprise

Category: Joint ventures/collaborations

  • High-Tech Sheet Fabric Developed to Reduce Bed Sore Risk

    Researchers at Empa, a scientific institute in Switzerland, the Swiss Paraplegic Centre, and Schoeller Group, an advanced textiles company also in Switzerland, created a new type of bed linen that reduces the chance of bed sores developing on immobile patients. Schoeller Group’s medical division plans to introduce the new material as a commercial product next…

  • U.K. Devotes £60 Million for Science Entrepreneurship

    The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council or EPSRC in the U.K. is funding 31 projects at British universities to encourage scientists to become new or better entrepreneurs. The £60 million ($US 95.3 million) program was announced today by Vince Cable, U.K.’s Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills. Under the program, EPSRC is…

  • Swine Genome Offers Insights for Agriculture, Medicine

    An analysis of the pig genome by an international consortium highlights genetic mechanisms that can improve breeding practices and show similarities with humans for development of drugs. The findings by the International Swine Genome Sequence Consortium appear online in the journals Nature and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers from North America,…

  • Wear-Resistant Diamond Tip Created for Nano-Manufacturing

    Engineers at University of Illinois, University of Pennsylvania, and Advanced Diamond Technologies Inc. in Romeoville, Illinois, developed a diamond tip for nanoscale lithography better able to meet heat and wear demands of semiconductor manufacturing. The team led by Illinois engineering professor William King (pictured left) published its findings yesterday online in the journal Nanotechnology; free…

  • VC, University Partner on Medical Device Start-Up Company

    George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and venture capital company Allied Minds Inc. in Boston, formed LuxCath LLC, a new company that makes a device for increasing the speed and safety of surgery for irregular heartbeat. LuxCath’s technology is based on research by faculty at George Washington’s medical school and engineering department. LuxCath is developing…

  • Universities, Biotechs to Research Epilepsy Treatments

    A consortium of universities and biotechnology companies in Europe are developing a new strategy for treating epilepsy, a neurological disease affecting 50 million people worldwide. The group called EPIXCHANGE includes researchers from Lund University in Sweden, University of Ferrara in Italy, and the biotech companies Bioviron in France and NsGene in Denmark. Epilepsy covers a…

  • Takeda Pharma to Acquire Envoy Therapeutics

    Takeda Pharmaceuticals, in Osaka, Japan, will acquire the drug discovery company Envoy Therapeutics in Jupiter, Florida for $140 million. Takeda says the merger will mean moving Envoy’s management and scientific staff to Takeda’s San Diego offices after March 2013. Envoy was founded by biophysicist and 2000 Nobel prize winner Paul Greengard, and Rockefeller University colleague…

  • Trial to Test Electronic Media for Brain Injury Care

    The Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and collaborators in the upper Midwest will examine ways to use electronic media to improve the care of patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI) in rural and underserved urban areas. The five-year clinical study is funded by a $2.2 million grant from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation…

  • Vertex to Partner with Janssen, GSK on Hepatitis C Drugs

    Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts will collaborate with Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a division of Johnson & Johnson, and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) on clinical trials of Vertex’s VX-135 treatment candidate for hepatitis C. The trials will test VX-135 in combination with hepatitis C drugs made by Janssen and GSK. Financial details of the agreements were not disclosed.…

  • Wake Forest, NanoMedica to Partner on Sequencing Technology

    Physicists at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and NanoMedica Inc., a biotechnology company also in Winston-Salem, received a Small Business Innovation Research grant to develop a faster process of drug development. The $700,000 grant from National Institutes of Health is supplemented by a $160,000 award from North Carolina Biotech Center to develop the…