Tag: pharmaceuticals
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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…
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Synthetic Blood Thinner Antidote Developed
30 October 2014. Medical and biochemical researchers at University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada designed a polymer antidote for heparin that in lab animals neutralizes anti-coagulant activity and appears to be well tolerated. The team led by chemistry and pathology professor Jayachandran Kizhakkedathu published its findings yesterday in the journal Science Translational Medicine (paid subscription…
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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…
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Project Developing DNA Antibodies for Infectious Diseases
21 October 2014. The biotechnology company Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. and partners are developing synthetic antibodies based on DNA that generate an immune reaction to prevent infectious diseases, a project funded by Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA. The $12.2 million DARPA grant is supporting the work of Inovia, in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania,…
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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…
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Astellas, Harvard Partner on Retinitis Pigmentosa Targets
14 October 2014. Astellas Pharma Inc. in Tokyo is collaborating with a genetics and ophthalmology lab at Harvard University to discover more about the onset of the eye disease retinitis pigmentosa and identify therapy targets. Financial details of the three-year deal with Harvard were not disclosed. Retinitis pigmentosa is a family of inherited eye disorders…
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Cancer Therapy Biotech Raises $24M in Early Funding
14 October 2014. Raze Therapeutics, a biotechnology company designing cancer therapies that stop mechanisms feeding the growth of cancer cells, raised $24 million in its first round of venture financing. The funding round was led Atlas Venture — that co-founded Raze and provided some of its seed capital — as well as MPM Capital Management,…
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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…
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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.…
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Stem Cells Engineered to Produce Insulin-Making Cells
9 October 2014. Researchers at Harvard University developed a technique that enables embryonic stem cells to transform into large quantities of insulin-producing beta cells found in the pancreas, a key step in developing a treatment for type 1 diabetes. The team led by biologist Douglas Melton, co-director of the university’s Stem Cell Institute, published its…