Tag: biotechnology
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Early Trial Shows Immunotherapy Evidence With Some Tumors
16 April 2014. A clinical trial of a cancer vaccine developed by biopharmaceutical company Celldex Therapeutics Inc. in Hampton, New Jersey shows it generated an immune response which affected the growth of tumors in some patients with advanced stages of cancer. The early-stage trial, conducted with researchers from seven university or research institute labs appears…
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Clinical Trial to Test Advanced Lung Cancer Immunotherapy
7 April 2014. EMD Serono, a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical company Merck in Rockland, Massachusetts, is beginning a clinical trial to test a vaccine-type therapy for advanced cases of non-small cell lung cancer. The late-stage trial is assessing the ability of tecemotide, an experimental drug designed to trigger an immune response against cancer cells, to…
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Poplar Trees Engineered to Produce More Biofuels, Wood Pulp
3 April 2014. Researchers at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, a consortium of University of Wisconsin in Madison and Michigan State University in East Lansing, created a genetically modified poplar tree variety with weakened lignin bonds, making it easier to process into commercial biofuels and wood pulp. The team from the labs of Wisconsin’s…
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Baxter Acquiring Hemophilia Gene-Therapy Biotech Company
3 April 2014. Baxter International, a pharmaceutical and medical products company in Deerfield, Illinois is buying Chatham Therapeutics LLC, a developer of gene therapy to treat hemophilia. Under the agreement, Baxter will acquire outstanding LLC interests in Chatham for $70 million, but future milestone payments are also possible. The acquisition gives Baxter access to all…
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Patent Awarded for Cancer Antibody Delivery Technology
2 April 2014. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded a patent for a technology that connects antibodies and cancer drugs to target and deliver treatments directly to tumor cells. Patent number 8,685,383 was awarded yesterday to nine inventors and assigned to Mersana Therapeutics Inc., a biopharmaceutical company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Timothy Lowinger, Mersana’s chief…
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EMD Serono, Pfizer, Broad Institute Partner on Lupus Markers
1 April 2014. EMD Serono, a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical company Merck in Rockland, Massachusetts, is joining with the drug maker Pfizer and Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT to identify genomic biomarkers of two types of lupus. The research is funded by EMD Serono and Pfizer, but financial aspects of the agreement were not…
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Trial to Test Engineered DNA Therapy for Preeclampsia
31 March 2014. The biopharmaceutical company rEVO Biologics in Framingham, Massachusetts is starting a clinical trial of its drug ATryn to treat women in mid-pregnancy with preeclampsia. The company says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave its approval for the trial to begin. Preeclampsia is a life-threatening condition resulting from a sudden rise in…
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Engineered Cardiac Tissue Helps Veins Return Blood to Heart
27 March 2014. A pharmacologist at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. developed a technique to produce heart muscle tissue from an individual’s stem cells that helps weak veins return blood back to the heart. The creator of the process, GWU medical school professor Narine Sarvazyan, discussed the technology in a recent online issue of…
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Drug Discovery Consortium Harnesses Sequencing, Big Data
27 March 2014. A collaboration among the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, European Bioinformatics Institute, and Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute aims to tap the power of genomic sequencing combined with bioinformatics to boost the success rate of discovering safe and effective medicines. Financial details of the partnership creating the new Centre for Therapeutic Target Validation were not disclosed. The consortium…
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Lab Chip Device Developed to Test Engineered Plant Traits
26 March 2014. Engineers at Iowa State University in Ames created a device about the size of a microscope slide that can quickly test the effects of genetic changes on plant characteristics, rather than growing sample seeds in soil. The team led by electrical and computer engineering professor Liang Dong, with colleagues from Iowa State…