Tag: university
-
Fertility Science Company Raises $115 Million in IPO
8 January 2015. OvaScience Inc., a developer of fertility treatments using a woman’s early-forming egg cells, issued its initial public offering of common stock, raising some $115 million. The Cambridge, Massachusetts company that trades on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol OVAS, issued 2.3 million shares yesterday priced at $50.00. At 12 noon on 8…
-
Novartis Licensing Biotechs’ Gene-Editing Technologies
7 January 2015. Pharmaceutical maker Novartis is licensing technologies from two biotechnology companies that enable the editing of human genomes to cure disease. Financial details of the agreements with Caribou Biosciences Inc. in Berkeley, California and Intellia Therapeutics in Cambridge, Massachusetts were not disclosed, but involve equity investments, initial payments and research support, and milestone…
-
RNA Therapies Company Gains $450M in Venture Funds
5 January 2015. Moderna Therapeutics, a developer of medications that use genetic material to produce therapeutic proteins in the body, raised $450 million in its third announced venture financing round. The Cambridge, Massachusetts biotechnology company says existing investors AstraZeneca and Alexion Pharmaceuticals joined with new participants Viking Global Investors LP, Invus, RA Capital Management, and…
-
Computer Model Predicts Bacteria Mutations, Aids Drug Design
2 January 2014. Researchers at Duke University and University of Connecticut wrote a mathematical model with open-source software that predicts mutations in bacteria to help design treatments for bacteria resistant to antibiotics. A team of computer scientists and biochemists from the two universities published their findings on 31 December 2014 in Proceedings of the National…
-
Project Aims to Boost Ebola Drug Production
31 December 2014. A research team at University of California in Davis aims to find new ways of boosting production capacity of the experimental Ebola drug ZMapp. The 1-year project, led by UC-Davis chemical engineering and materials science professor Karen McDonald, is funded by a $200,000 rapid-response grant from National Science Foundation. The current Ebola…
-
3-D Tissue Assembly System Designed
22 December 2014. Medical and engineering researchers at Brown University in Providence developed a system that puts together synthetic tissue components into larger tissue assemblies, a step in the creation of synthetic organs. A description of the system from the lab of Brown bioengineering professor Jeffrey Morgan was published on Saturday in the journal Tissue…
-
Simpler, Lens-Free Microscope Developed
18 December 2014. Engineers and medical researchers at University of California in Los Angeles designed a new type of microscope that combines holograms with computational techniques to generate images of pathology samples with quality comparable to lens-type microscopes. The team led by electrical and biomedical engineering professor Aydogan Ozcan published its findings yesterday in the…
-
Eye Tracking System Devised to Diagnose Brain Injuries
17 December 2014. Researchers at New York University Medical Center designed a technology that spots brain injuries in patients by tracking their eye movements while watching a few minutes of videos. The team led by neuroscience and physiology professor Uzma Samadani, with colleagues from other NYU departments and VA New York Harbor Healthcare System, published…
-
Spin-Off Building Simplifed Signal Processing Connections
16 December 2014. An engineering lab at Columbia University in New York is spinning off a new company aiming to design simpler connections between analog and digital signals as systems get smaller and performance becomes more demanding. Seamless Devices Inc., founded by electrical engineering professor Peter Kinget and former graduate student Jayanth Kuppambatti, began in…
-
Pfizer, Opko Partner on Growth Hormone Drug
16 December 2014. The pharmaceutical company Pfizer is licensing an engineered compound to treat human growth hormone deficiency in adults and children from Opko Health Inc., a provider of therapeutics and diagnostics. The deal has a potential value to Opko of $570 million, plus royalties from sales. Opko Health, based in Miami, offers drugs and…