Science and Enterprise

Tag: biotechnology

  • Merck, Biopharm to Partner on Hypoxia-Targeting Cancer Drug

    Threshold Pharmaceuticals Inc., a biopharmaceutical company in South San Francisco, California and Merck KGaA, the global drug manufacturer in Darmstadt, Germany have agreed to co-develop and commercialize Threshold’s drug TH-302. The drug TH-302 targets hypoxia, caused by low oxygen levels due to insufficient blood vessel growth, a common condition of tissues with many solid tumors,…

  • Sanofi to Cut Genzyme Massachusetts Research Staff

    The French pharmaceutical maker Sanofi says it will reduce its research workforce employed in and around Boston, as a result of its acquisition of Genzyme Corporation a year ago. Sanofi confirmed the cuts today in a statement to the industry Web site Fierce Biotech. Genzyme, headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was acquired by Sanofi last year…

  • Prostate Cancer Therapy Shown Effective in Chemo Patients

    A phase 3 clinical trial has shown a new drug to treat prostate cancer is effective with patients who had previously been treated with chemotherapy. The results of the study of MDV3100 — made by the biopharmaceutical company Medivation Inc. in San Francisco and Astellas Pharma Inc. in Tokyo, Japan — will be presented tomorrow…

  • Canadian Govt Opens Call for Personalized Medicines R&D

    The Canadian government opened a matching grant competition for research proposals on personalized medicine. The call seeks research proposals that can take treatments from “one size fits all” to more precise treatments and interventions addressing specific characteristics of the individual, made possible by new diagnostic technologies that look at patients’ unique genetic signatures. The competition…

  • $600K Foundation Grant to Fund Cancer Genomics Research

    The National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) has awarded a $600,000 grant to the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Phoenix and the University of Arizona in Tucson for the study of targeted cancer therapies. The three-year grant will enable TGen and the university to continue its NFCR Center for Targeted Cancer Therapies, created in…

  • Venture Investment for European Companies Drops in 2011

    Venture capital declined 14 percent and number of deals dropped 19 percent for European companies in 2011 compared to 2010, with €4.4 billion ($US 5.8 billion) going into 1,012 deals. Industries based on scientific discoveries were among those suffering double-digit percentage declines from the previous year. Dow Jones VentureSource that compiled the data says it…

  • Celgene to Acquire Avila Therapeutics

    The pharmaceutical company Celgene Corp. in Summit, New Jersey says it will acquire Avila Therapeutics, a biotechnology company in Bedford, Massachusetts. Celgene discovers and commercializes therapies for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases through gene and protein regulation. Avila develops covalent drugs, those that bind to and inhibit disease-causing proteins. Under the agreement, Celgene…

  • Dutch Biotech Raises $30M for Rare Disease Therapies

    Prosensa, a biopharmaceutical company in Leiden, the Netherlands, says it has raised €23 million ($30 million) in new equity financing. The company develops therapeutics using ribonucleic acid (RNA) modulation to address rare diseases, including Duchenne muscular dystrophy, myotonic dystrophy, and Huntington’s disease. The funding round is led by New Enterprise Associates in Menlo Park, California,…

  • First Results Show Safety of Stem Cell Eye Transplants

    Early results from two clinical trials show the safety of retinal cells derived from human embryonic stems cells (hESCs) to treat chronic eye diseases. The results from two patients, one in each trial conducted by the biotechnology company Advanced Cell Technology (ACT) in Marlborough, Massachusetts, were published online in the journal The Lancet. The clinical…

  • Consortium Develops Virtual Mouse for Lab Testing

    Simcyp Ltd. in Sheffield, U.K., a consortium of pharmaceutical and biotech companies and research universities, has created a virtual lab mouse for use in cancer and toxicological research. Simcyp is a spin-off enterprise from Sheffield University that develops modeling and simulation tools for lab testing. Lab mice are used frequently in the development of new drugs…