Tag: biotechnology

  • Biotech Group Issues Clinical Trial Data Sharing Guidelines

    25 March 2014. Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) today released its principles for sharing data from clinical trials that encourage making more data available from clinical trials, but leave procedures for sharing up to the individual companies. The guidelines cover programs resulting in approved medicines, as well as those discontinued for safety or efficacy reasons, although…

  • Bristol-Myers Squibb, Biotech in Cancer Drug Discovery Deal

    17 March 2014. Bristol-Myers Squibb, a pharmaceutical company in New York, and Five Prime Therapeutics in South San Francisco, California are collaborating in discovery of cancer immunotherapies. The deal can be worth as much as $350 million to Five Prime Therapeutics, in which Bristol-Myers Squibb will also get a 5 percent stake. Five Prime Therapeutics…

  • Biotech Partnership to Develop Non-Ricin Castor Plants

    12 March 2014.  Precision BioSciences Inc. and Novo Synthetix, biotechnology companies in Durham, North Carolina, are collaborating on a new type of castor bean, without the ricin poison that makes the beans difficult to process and market. Financial and intellectual property aspects of the deal were not disclosed. Beans from castor plants (Ricinus communis) have the potential to…

  • Early Trial Shows Gene Editing Potential to Treat HIV/AIDS

    6 March 2014. Researchers from University of Pennsylvania, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and the biotechnology company Sangamo BioSciences showed the company’s gene-editing technology could engineer the immune cells of HIV-positive patients to resist infection and decrease their viral loads. Results of the early-stage clinical trial led by Penn immunologist Carl June will be presented…

  • Patent Granted for RNA-Interference to Treat Scar Tissue

    5 March 2014. RXi Pharmaceuticals Corp., a biotechnology company in Westborough, Massachusetts, received a patent for its technology based on RNA-interference to treat skin scars, including surgical scars. Patent number 8,664,189 was awarded yesterday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to seven inventors and assigned to RXi Pharmaceuticals. RXi develops therapies with a technology…

  • FDA Fast-Tracks Depression Drug from Northwestern Spin-Off

    Naurex Inc., a biotechnology company in Evanston, Illinois, says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted fast-track status for its drug candidate code-named GLYX-13 to treat depression. GLYX-13 is Naurex’s lead product for treatment of central nervous system disorders. The company develops drugs for diseases of the central nervous system that stimulate N-Methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors,…

  • Genocea, Harvard, Dana-Farber to Partner on Melanoma

    3 March 2014. Genocea Biosciences, a biotechnology company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Research Institute, are testing the company’s vaccine discovery platform to help target therapies for melanoma, an aggressive form of skin cancer. The collaboration is funded by Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, but financial aspects of the partnership…

  • Life Sciences Investment Company Closes New Fund

    28 February 2014. Abingworth LLP, an investment company based in London, closed its 10th fund designed for financing life sciences and health care enterprises. The company says its Abingworth Bioventures VI fund raised £225 million ($375 million), exceeding its target of £200 million. Abingworth expects its Bioventures VI fund to invest in life sciences companies in Europe…

  • Gene Modified Potatoes Developed with Blight Resistance

    24 February 2014. Researchers at The Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, U.K. developed and field tested a new type of potato with greater genetically modified resistance to late blight, a long-time scourge of potato growers. The team led by Sainsbury plant biologist Jonathan Jones reported its findings online last week in the journal Philosophical Transactions of…

  • Science-Based Enterprises: Great Ideas Beat Venture Capital

    14 February 2014. Three entrepreneurs starting companies based on science described how they got their businesses off the ground, with ground-breaking science in many cases more important than a large stash of venture capital. San Diego entrepreneurs John Newsam, Irwin Jacobs, and Han Cao told of their start-up business experiences today at a session of…