Category: Intellectual property
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Patent Awarded for Early, Pre-Symptom Cancer Tests
16 June 2015. Three researchers at Kansas State University in Manhattan received a patent for an early-stage test that the inventors say can diagnose some solid tumor cancers well before symptoms develop. Kansas State chemistry professor Stefan Bossmann and anatomy-physiology professor Deryl Troyer, with postdoctoral fellow Matthew Basel, received U.S. patent number 8,969,027 in March…
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Grant Funds Exosome Cancer Research, Optioned to Spin-Off
9 June 2015. A new $1.7 million grant from National Cancer Institute is funding research at University of New Mexico on harnessing exosomes as potential cancer therapies, with a spin-off company already optioning the technology for commercial development. The alliance between the university and spin-off company, Exovita Biosciences, includes an agreement between the university and…
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Biotech Adds Antibiotic Program, Raises $30 Million
8 June 2015. Spero Therapeutics, a developer of antibiotics, is adding a new class of anti-infection drugs to its pipeline, and raised another $30 million to its first venture funding round. The Cambridge, Massachusetts biotechnology company, a spin-off from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, was founded in April 2014 to develop therapies addressing the growing…
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FDA Approves Pediatric HIV Drug Formulation
5 June 2015. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved an application for a current HIV drug formulated to better treat infections in infants and young children, especially in limited resource regions. The formulation is a combination of lopinavir and ritonavir in pellet form designed to mix with food, and manufactured by the generic drug…
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Spin-Off Biotech Formed for Autoimmune Disorders
2 June 2015. Drug maker Astellas Pharma Inc. in Tokyo and Anokion SA, a biotechnology company in Lausanne, Switzerland, are forming Kanyos Bio Inc., a spin-off enterprise to develop therapy candidates for autoimmune diseases. The deal could bring Kanyos Bio, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, as much as $760 million, as well as an equity investment…
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Patent Awarded for Plant Gene Sequence Engineering
27 May 2015. A patent for a genetic sequence derived from soybeans, but applicable through engineering to a range of plants, was granted to Ceres Inc., an agricultural biotechnology company in Thousand Oaks, California. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted patent number 9,024,004, Sequence-determined DNA fragments encoding acetohydroxyacid synthase proteins, on 5 May 2015 to…
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Oxford Establishes £300M Spin-Off Capital Fund
15 May 2015. University of Oxford in the U.K. is creating a capital investment fund to help launch spin-off companies based on research from university labs. The £300 million ($US 472 million) fund will be managed by a new enterprise, Oxford Sciences Innovation plc, which will be the university’s preferred capital financier for businesses generated…
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Plant Science Biotech Gets Genome Editing Technology
16 April 2015. Cellectis Plant Sciences, a biotechnology company in Minnesota developing higher quality crops through genetic engineering, licensed CRISPR genome editing technology from University of Minnesota. Financial details of the agreement between Cellectis and the university were not disclosed. The technology licensed by Cellectis covers techniques known as CRISPR, short for clustered, regularly interspaced short…
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Janssen Licensing DNA Technology for Hep B Vaccine
13 April 2015. Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a division of Johnson & Johnson, is licensing an electronic DNA drug delivery technology from Ichor Medical Systems for vaccines to treat hepatitis B. Ichor, based in San Diego, expects to gain as much as $85 million in the deal. Hepatitis B is a liver infection caused by a virus…
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Purdue Spin-Off Designing Customized Synthetic Tissue
8 April 2015. A one year-old company, based on research at a Purdue University biomedical engineering lab, is producing customized biomaterials designed to form into synthetic tissue for drug discovery and toxicity testing. GeniPhys, founded by Purdue biomedical engineering professor Sherry Harbin, aims to further develop the technology, licensed from the university, into engineered tissue…