Tag: pharmaceuticals
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FDA Lifts Hold on Blood Cancer Therapy Clinical Trials
Cell Therapeutics Inc., a biopharmaceutical company in Seattle developing cancer treatments, says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration lifted a six-month hold on tests of its experimental drug tosedostat to treat blood-related cancers. The intermediate-stage clinical trial is testing the drug in elderly patients with newly diagnosed and relapsed acute myeloid leukemia and high-risk myelodysplastic…
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Clinical, Drug Discovery Biotech Companies Announce Merger
Senesco Technologies, a clinical stage biotechnology company in Bridgewater, New Jersey says it has a non-binding merger agreement with Fabrus Inc. in La Jolla, California, a drug-discovery biotechnology firm. Financial details of the merger were not disclosed, although the companies plan to reveal the terms when they finalize the agreement in early 2014. Senesco develops…
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NIH Funding Further Marburg Virus Therapy Development
BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc., a developer of drugs for infectious and rare diseases in Durham, North Carolina, says National Institutes of Health (NIH) is continuing its contract with the company to develop a treatment for Marburg virus, the cause of a rare but dangerous tropical disease. The contract extension, says BioCryst, is worth $2.5 million, increasing…
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Large Genomic Study Finds New Rheumatoid Arthritis Targets
An international consortium of 70 institutions and companies combined genome-wide analyses with current drug databases to uncover new genomic targets for rheumatoid arthritis, and identify drugs for other diseases with the potential to treat the disorder. The team led by Robert Plenge of Harvard Medical School and the Broad Institute and Yukinori Okada from the…
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FDA Approves Rare Congenital Blood Disease Treatment
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration yesterday approved a treatment for congenital factor XIII A-subunit deficiency, a rare blood clotting disorder, made by the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk, based in Denmark. Tretten, the medication’s brand name, is an engineered biologic designed to prevent bleeding in adults and children with the disorder. People with factor XIII…
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Discovery Process Devised to Better Test Drug Effects
Biomedical researchers at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California developed a drug discovery method that combines the rapid screening of potential compounds with preclinical tests of the best prospects, and in the process identified a potential new compound to treat type 2 diabetes. The Scripps team led by chemical physiologists Enrique Saez and Benjamin…
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Drug Fixes Vision Birth Defect in Lab Tests, Trial Planned
Medical researchers at University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada adapted a new drug as a treatment for aniridia, a rare eye disease caused by a birth defect, with tests on mice showing the drug’s potential effectiveness in treating the disorder. The team from UBC and the affiliated Vancouver Coastal Health, led by UBC ophthalmology…
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Monthly Pharmacist Appointments Improve Medication Adherence
Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond found regular monthly appointments with pharmacists can help patients keep taking their medications as prescribed. Pharmacy professor David Holdford and then-doctoral candidate Timothy Inocencio published their findings in the current issue of the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association (subscription required). A study published earlier this year in…
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Bayer Acquires Cancer Drug Developer Algeta for $2.9B
The global pharmaceutical company Bayer Group based in Germany is buying the specialty drug company Algeta ASA in Oslo, Norway for NOK 17.6 billion (USD 2.9 billion). Algeta, developer of a radium-based drug to treat prostate cancer, says its board of directors approved the sale, subject to confirmation by shareholders. Bayer and Algeta collaborated on…
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Early Trial Tests Stem Cell Immunotherapy for Liver Cancer
An early stage clinical trial by California Stem Cell Inc. in Irvine tested a therapy harnessing the body’s immune system to treat a common form of liver cancer. The trial, conducted with eight patients in Shanghai, China, showed the treatments were safe for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and did not cause complications, according to the…