Month: December 2014
-
Project Aims to Boost Ebola Drug Production
31 December 2014. A research team at University of California in Davis aims to find new ways of boosting production capacity of the experimental Ebola drug ZMapp. The 1-year project, led by UC-Davis chemical engineering and materials science professor Karen McDonald, is funded by a $200,000 rapid-response grant from National Science Foundation. The current Ebola…
-
Pump Device Shown to Deliver Parkinson’s Drug
30 December 2014. A clinical trial testing a pump worn by Parkinson’s disease patients shows the device can continuously deliver drugs under the skin to treat severe forms of the disorder, which today requires a surgical implant. The pump made by NeuroDerm Ltd. in Rehovot, Israel is designed to overcome shortcomings of oral forms of…
-
Vaccine Combo Produces Ricin, Anthrax Antibodies
29 December 2014. Tests of a vaccine to prevent ricin and anthrax poisoning shows it produces long-lasting antibodies against both toxins, making a single vaccine against both bioterror agents more feasible. Results of a study by biotechnology company Soligenix Inc. in Princeton, New Jersey are reported in the January 2015 issue of the journal Vaccine…
-
Merry Christmas/Feliz Navidad
Science and Enterprise is taking a break tomorrow and Friday for Christmas. In the spirit of the season, here is a video from a group of talented, yet little-known musicians taking part of an initiative called Playing for Change. That organization finds unknown, talented musicians worldwide, many of whom are playing on the street or…
-
Early Trial Underway Testing Brain Cancer Drug
24 December 2014. Kinex Pharmaceuticals, a developer of cancer therapies, began an early-stage clinical trial of an experimental treatment for tumors of support cells in the brain. The Buffalo, New York biotechnology company says the first patient received the drug code-named KX2-361 in the trial taking place at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, also in Buffalo,…
-
FDA Approves New Influenza Treatment
23 December 2014. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved yesterday a drug to treat influenza infections in adults. The treatment, Rapivab, is a small molecule drug made by BioCryst Pharmaceuticals in Durham, North Carolina. BioCryst designs and develops therapies that block enzymes involved in infectious and inflammatory diseases, with a technology that creates synthetic compounds using…
-
Trial Testing Biologic Treatment for Hepatitis D
22 December 2014. An intermediate-stage clinical trial testing a biologic treatment made by Eiger BioPharmaceuticals Inc. shows lower hepatitis D virus levels among patients taking the treatment compared to a placebo. The San Carlos, California company says the treatment, called lonafarnib, also received orphan drug status by regulatory authorities in the U.S. and Europe. Hepatitis…
-
3-D Tissue Assembly System Designed
22 December 2014. Medical and engineering researchers at Brown University in Providence developed a system that puts together synthetic tissue components into larger tissue assemblies, a step in the creation of synthetic organs. A description of the system from the lab of Brown bioengineering professor Jeffrey Morgan was published on Saturday in the journal Tissue…
-
Lilly, Biotech Partner on Fast-Acting Insulin Analog
19 December 2014. The pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Company and biotechnology company Adocia are collaborating on commercial development of Adocia’s fast-acting synthetic insulin product. Adocia, based in Lyon, France, can gain as much as $570 million in the deal, not counting royalties on future sales. Adocia develops enhanced formulations of protein-based therapies either on…
-
Juno Therapeutics Raises $265 Million in IPO
19 December 2014. Juno Therapeutics, a biotechnology company spun-off from research labs in Seattle and New York, raised some $265 million yesterday in its initial public stock offering. The Seattle enterprise developing cancer therapies that harness the immune system issued 11 million shares of common stock priced at $24.00, and trades on the Nasdaq exchange…