Category: Finance
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European Researchers to Develop Lab Cancer Bio-Model
Researchers in the U.K. and Switzerland are building a simulated environment to grow cancer cells in the lab for a better understanding of the way cancer cells develop and spread. The CANBUILD project draws faculty from Queen Mary, University of London — including the principal investogator Frances Balkwill — as well as colleagues from Cancer…
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Venture Funding Declines in Q1, Health Companies Buck Trend
Venture capital funding in the U.S. declined in the first quarter of 2013, continuing a trend begun in 2011, but companies in the health care sector, particularly those based on scientific discovery, played a prominent role in the quarter’s venture transactions. VentureSource, a service of financial publishers Dow Jones, released the first quarter data today.…
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Forum: Focus Research Funding on Scientists Not Science
Elazer Edelman, a health sciences and technology professor at MIT called for a different funding formula during tight economic times that finances scientists rather than big scientific initiatives. Edelman made his remarks at a forum today on biomedical innovation in Washington, D.C. put on by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He also…
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Thermo Scientific Acquires Sequencing Technology Developer
Thermo Fisher Scientific, a maker of laboratory instruments and technologies in Waltham, Massachusetts acquired the genomic sequencing systems developer Life Technologies in Carlsbad, California for $13.6 billion in cash and debt assumption. In the deal, Thermo Fisher Scientific will pay $76.00 per share and assume Life Technologies’ net outstanding debt, valued at $2.2 billion. Life…
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Biotech Wins Fox Grant for Parkinson’s Drug Delivery Test
Intec Pharma, a biotechnology company in Jerusalem, Israel, received a $705,000 grant from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for a clinical trial of its system to deliver the drug combination carbidopa and levodopa to treat Parkinson’s disease. The company expects to complete the test in the first quarter of 2014. Intec Pharma developed an oral…
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GlaxoSmithKline Crowdsourcing Bioelectronic Research Ideas
The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is seeking research ideas from the global scientific community to better understand the body’s neural signaling mechanisms to discover therapies that harness these mechanisms. The company is also mounting a separate competition through InnoCentive to identify a specific disease to serve as a proof-of-principle test for potential neural signaling solutions.…
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Modern Methods Examined for Beer from Victorian Barley
Researchers at the John Innes Center, a plant science research institute in Norwich, U.K., are investigating the commercial potential of brewing beer from Chevallier, a classic variety of barley grown during Britain’s Victorian era in the second half of the 19th century. A grant of £250,000 ($US 384,000) from the U.K.’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences…
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Agriculture Biotech Secures $14.5M in Early-Stage Financing
AgBiome LLC, an agricultural biotechnology company in Durham, North Carolina, gained $14.5 million in series A venture funding, the first round of financing after initial start-up. Polaris Partners, a venture capital company in Boston specializing in health care and technology startups, led the round, joined by ARCH Venture Partners, Harris & Harris Group, Innotech Advisers,…
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Mayo CEO: Government Needs to Fund Health Care Innovation
John Noseworthy, president and CEO of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, told an audience today that the U.S. government needs to fund scientific discovery to maintain U.S. health care quality and affordability, especially funding for National Institutes of Health (NIH). Noseworthy made his remarks in a speech at the National Press Club in Washington,…
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Gates Foundation Funds, Invests in Tropical Disease Research
Anacor Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company in Palo Alto, California, will receive an award of nearly $18 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to discover drug candidates for tropical worm diseases and tuberculosis. Anacor says the Gates Foundation will also invest $5 million in the company’s common stock. Anacor develops small molecule therapies using…