Tag: clinical trials
-
Biosimilars Developer Lands $85 Million in IPO
7 November 2014. Coherus BioSciences Inc., a company developing medications comparable to brand-name biologic therapies, raised $85 million yesterday in its initial public stock offering. The Redwood City, California company trades on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol CHRS. Coherus valued its 6,296,300 initial shares at $13.50. The stock opened today at $12.74 a share,…
-
Patent Awarded for Replacement Pancreas Cell Processes
6 November 2014. ViaCyte Inc., a biotechnology company in San Diego, received a patent for its processes in making early stage pancreatic cells to replace defective cells in patients with type 1 diabetes. Patent number 8,859,286 was awarded in mid-October by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to inventor Alan Agulnick, a researcher at ViaCyte, and…
-
Trial Shows Weight Loss Drug Can Help Stop Smoking
3 November 2014. First results from an intermediate-stage clinical trial shows lorcaserin HCl, a drug approved to help people lose weight, also helps regular smokers stop smoking. The findings were reported today by Eisai Inc. and Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc., who offer lorcaserin HCl under the brand name Belviq. The companies say more results will be reported at…
-
Ebola-Marburg Vaccine Development, Testing Contract Awarded
31 October 2014. A biodefense unit of the U.S. Department of Defense awarded a contract to vaccine maker Profectus BioSciences Inc. for development and testing of a vaccine protecting against the two major Ebola strains and related Marburg viruses. The $9.5 million contract with the Baltimore company came from DoD’s Medical Countermeasure Systems-Joint Vaccine Acquisition…
-
Drug/Device Therapy Trial Shows Fast Migraine Relief
30 October 2014. A late-stage clinical trial shows a medical device designed to deliver migraine drugs deep into nasal cavities achieved headache relief in as little as 30 minutes among patients, and sustained that relief for as long as 48 hours compared to a placebo. The biopharmaceutical company Avanir Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Aliso Viejo, California…
-
Clinical Trial Proposals Sought for ALS Treatments
22 October 2014. A group of U.S. organizations promoting research on therapies for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or ALS are seeking proposals from academic-industry research teams for intermediate stage clinical trials to test treatment candidates for the disease. The organizations — ALS Association, ALS Accelerated Therapeutics or ALS ACT, and Northeast ALS Consortium — plan to…
-
Personalized Leukemia Immunotherapy Gets 90 Pct Remission
16 October 2014. Nine in 10 children and adults in early-stage clinical trials of a personalized therapy harnessing the patients’ immune systems achieved full remission of their acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The findings of the team from University of Pennsylvania and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia are reported today in New England Journal of Medicine (paid subscription…
-
Experimental Drug Kills Myeloma Cells in Lab, Trial Planned
13 October 2014. Medical researchers at Imperial College London in the U.K. developed an experimental drug that in lab and animal tests kills multiple myeloma cancer cells without the toxic side effects of other cancer drugs. The team led by Imperial medical professor Guido Franzoso published its findings today in the journal Cancer Cell, with…
-
Hepatitis C Combination Drug Approved by FDA
Updated 11 October 2014. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a drug combining a new compound, ledipasvir, with the existing drug sofosbuvir to treat hepatitis C genotype 1, the most common form of the disease. The combination of ledipasvir and sofosbuvir is developed and marketed under the brand name Harvoni by Gilead Sciences Inc.…
-
Nerve-Blocking Treatment for Diabetes Approved in Europe
29 September 2014. EnteroMedics Inc., a medical device developer in St. Paul, Minnesota, says marketing approval in Europe for its vagus nerve blocking device for obesity is extended to cover type 2 diabetes. A CE Mark, which signifies approval to market regulated products such as medical devices in the European Union and associated countries, is…