Month: February 2015
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Janssen, Foundation to Devise Diabetes Prevention Strategy
12 February 2015. Janssen Research and Development, a division of Johnson & Johnson, and JDRF plan to investigate new ways to diagnose early conditions and prevent the onset of type 1 diabetes. Financial details of the collaboration between Janssen and JDRF, a foundation supporting research on type 1 diabetes, were not disclosed. Type 1 diabetes is…
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Handheld Probe Detects Cancer Cells in Brain
12 February 2015. Medical and engineering researchers at McGill University and Polytechnique Montréal developed a technique using a handheld probe that enables surgeons to find elusive cancer cells in the brain. The team led by McGill’s Kevin Petrecca and Polytechnique Montréal’s Frederic Leblond reported their findings yesterday in the journal Science Translational Medicine (paid subscription…
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Foundation, Pfizer Collaborate on Alzheimer’s Targets
11 February 2015. Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation and Pfizer’s Centers for Therapeutic Innovation are joining forces to sponsor research to find new Alzheimer’s disease drug targets. Financial details of the collaboration were not revealed. The foundation and Pfizer plan to invest in project teams of Pfizer and academic scientists to translate academic research into candidates…
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Genzyme Licensing Gene Therapies from Biotech Start-Up
11 February 2015. Voyager Therapeutics, a designer of gene therapies for central nervous system diseases, is licensing some of its treatments now in development to Genzyme Corp., a biotechnology subsidiary of the drug maker Sanofi. The deal is expected to bring the one year-old spin-off from four university research labs as much as $845 million.…
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Biotech, Hospira to Partner on Biosimilar for Eye Disease
10 February 2015. Pfenex Inc., a biotechnology company in San Diego, is licensing its lead product to treat age-related macular degeneration to biologic therapy maker Hospira. The deal can bring Pfenex as much as $342 million, plus royalties on sales of products from the collaboration, over at least the next five years. Age-related macular degeneration is…
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FDA Sanctions Not Mentioned in Published Clinical Trials
10 February 2015. An investigation by a New York University journalism professor shows serious violations in clinical trials revealed in Food and Drug Administration inspections are largely not mentioned in reports of those trials in scientific journals. The findings of Charles Seife and his team from NYU’s journalism school were published yesterday in the journal…
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Activity Trackers Adapted for Clinical Trial Data
9 February 2015. Medidata Solutions, a company providing cloud-based services for clinical trials, is teaming with Garmin Ltd., a provider of mobile GPS systems, to capture data from Garmin’s activity trackers worn by patients in clinical trials. Financial terms of the collaboration were not disclosed. The deal involves integrating data from Garmin’s Vivofit activity trackers…
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Smartphones Studied to Upgrade Hearing Aids
6 February 2015. Engineers at University of Texas in Dallas are studying the potential of smartphones to boost the ability of hearing aids to help people who are hard of hearing. Electrical engineering professor Issa Panahi is leading a team of engineers and audiologists in a two-year, $522,000 project funded by National Institute on Deafness…
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Robotics Designed for Laundry and Other Uncertain Tasks
6 February 2015. Computer scientists designed and tested decision-making models using artificial intelligence for robots to plan and perform unstructured and ill-defined tasks, from doing household laundry to conducting search-and-rescue operations. The team led by Siddharth Srivastava, now with United Technologies in Berkeley, California and Shlomo Zilberstein from University of Massachusetts in Amherst described their…
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Report: U.S. Edge in Advanced Industries Slipping
5 February 2015. A new report from Brookings Institution says the United States is losing ground to overseas competitors in critical advanced industries that hold the key to the country’s long-term economic future. The study by the Washington, D.C. think tank was discussed in a forum today with six CEOs of U.S. companies and the…