Tag: pharmaceuticals
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FDA Grants Muscle-Wasting Disease Drug Breakthrough Status
The global pharmaceutical company Novartis says the Food and Drug Administration granted its therapy candidate bimagrumab breakthrough status to treat a rare muscle-wasting condition for which there are currently no approved treatments. FDA designates new drugs for serious or life-threatening conditions as breakthroughs to expedite their review in the agency. The disorder is known as…
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Data Review Indicates Drug Improves Brain Cancer Survival
Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota found patients who took the drug bevacizumab for the brain cancer glioblastoma lived somewhat longer than patients with the disease before the drug’s FDA approval in 2009. The team of neurologists Derek Johnson, Heather Leeper, and Joon Uhm describe their findings in a recent issue of the journal…
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Trial Shows Glucose-Lowering Drug Effective with Elderly
A late-stage clinical trial shows the drug linagliptin, marketed by Boehringer Ingelheim and Eli Lilly and Company, helps elderly patients with type 2 diabetes lower their blood glucose levels. Researchers from Boehringer Ingelheim and University of Birmingham in the U.K. describe their findings online this week in the journal The Lancet (paid subscription required). Linagliptin —…
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GSK Starts Venture Fund for Nerve-Signal Devices, Medicines
The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline is starting a venture capital fund to invest in companies making therapeutic devices and medications harnessing the body’s electrical signaling system. The fund, called Action Potential Venture Capital (APVC) Ltd. will have $50 million, with its first investment in a California company developing a device to regulate nerve signals for treating…
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FDA Approves Shipping of GSK Four-Strain Flu Vaccine
The global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave its approval to ship the company’s vaccine covering four potential virus strains for the 2013-2014 influenza season. GSK says this year will be the first that vaccines will be available to protect against more than three strains of flu. FDA approved GlaxoSmithKline’s Fluarix…
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Bayer, Compugen to Partner on Cancer Immunotherapies
The pharmaceutical company Bayer HealthCare in Berlin and drug discovery company Compugen Ltd in Tel Aviv, Israel agreed on a development and licensing deal for two potential cancer therapies discovered by Compugen that harness the body’s immune system. The deal has a potential value to Compugen of at least $540 million. Compugen uses computational biology,…
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Genomics Therapy Company Secures $60M Venture Financing
Dicerna Pharmaceuticals Inc., in Watertown, Massachusetts, closed its third round of venture financing after start-up with $60 million in additional capital from new and current investors. Dicerna is a six year-old biotechnology company developing therapies harnessing genomic material to silence genes causing diseases. Dicerna’s technology is based on ribonucleic acid or RNA interference (RNAi), a…
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Efficient Synthesis Process Developed for Skin Cancer Drug
Chemists at Scripps Research Institute in San Diego and Leo Pharma in Denmark devised a more efficient process to synthesize ingenol, a complex compound found in treatments for actinic keratosis, a precancerous skin condition. The team led by Scripps’s chemistry professor Phil Baran published its findings in this week’s issue of Science Express, the advance…
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Biotech Gets Small Business Funds for Universal Flu Vaccine
TechnoVax Inc., a biotechnology company in Tarrytown, New York, received a grant from National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of National Institutes of Health, to develop a vaccine that protects against a wide assortment of flu strains. The initial award of $300,000, made under the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program at NIH,…
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Actelion to Acquire Developer of Rare Cancer Treatment
Actelion Ltd, a biopharmaceutical company based in Switzerland, acquired Ceptaris Therapeutics Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical developer in Malvern, Pennsylvania, in a deal with a potential value of at least $250 million. The acquisition, however, depends on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approving Ceptaris’s only current product, a topical treatment for symptoms from a rare…