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Venture Launched to Reduce Chronic Hospitalizations
10 November 2014. Sentrian, a new enterprise in Aliso Viejo, California, announced its launch today to offer a system combining personalized remote patient monitoring and cloud-based analytics that reduces what it calls preventable hospitalizations. The company also raised $12 million in early-stage venture funds. A spin-off from Singularity University, a Silicon Valley technology training organization and…
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Challenge Seeks Preclinical Models for Macular Degeneration
7 November 2014. A new challenge on InnoCentive asks for novel methods to test therapies for age-related macular degeneration in the lab, before being tested on humans. The competition has a total purse of $50,000 and deadline of 12 January 2015, where winners can also compete in a subsequent design challenge with a prize pool…
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Biosimilars Developer Lands $85 Million in IPO
7 November 2014. Coherus BioSciences Inc., a company developing medications comparable to brand-name biologic therapies, raised $85 million yesterday in its initial public stock offering. The Redwood City, California company trades on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol CHRS. Coherus valued its 6,296,300 initial shares at $13.50. The stock opened today at $12.74 a share,…
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Patent Awarded for Replacement Pancreas Cell Processes
6 November 2014. ViaCyte Inc., a biotechnology company in San Diego, received a patent for its processes in making early stage pancreatic cells to replace defective cells in patients with type 1 diabetes. Patent number 8,859,286 was awarded in mid-October by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to inventor Alan Agulnick, a researcher at ViaCyte, and…
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Bone Drugs Found as Possible Breast Cancer Therapy
6 November 2014. Medical researchers at the Garvan Institute in Sydney, Australia found common drugs to treat bone loss could treat breast and other other tumors outside the skeleton. The team led by Garvan research fellow Mike Rogers, with colleagues in Scotland and the U.S., published its findings online in the journal Cancer Discovery (paid…
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Big Data Project Seeks to Autocomplete Software Code
5 November 2014. A new project led by computer scientists at Rice University in Houston aims to apply big data analytics and data mining for software developers to generate code the same way as search engines anticipate or correct the entry of search terms. The 4 year, $11 million initiative is funded by Defense Advanced…
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High-Speed Artery Imaging Technology in Development
5 November 2014. A process to capture high-speed three-dimensional images of plaque deposits in arteries and analyze their chemical makeup for diagnosing heart conditions is being developed by Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. The team from the lab of Purdue biomedical engineer and chemist Ji-Xin Cheng, with colleagues from Indiana University School of Medicine,…
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Patent Issued for Engineered Peptides Forming Hydrogels
4 November 2014. Bioengineers at Kansas State University received a patent for their invention of a peptide, a protein-like compound, that turns into water-based gels for a number of medical applications. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded patent number 8,835,395 to Xiuzhi (Susan) Sun, professor of grain science and bioengineering at Kansas State, as well…
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Child-Safe Coating Devised for Button Batteries
4 November 2014. Engineers and medical researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and hospitals affiliated with Harvard Medical School developed a coating for small batteries that tests show could prevent poisoning when swallowed accidentally by young children. The team from the labs of Robert Langer at MIT and Jeffrey Karp at Brigham and Women’s Hospital…
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Trial Shows Weight Loss Drug Can Help Stop Smoking
3 November 2014. First results from an intermediate-stage clinical trial shows lorcaserin HCl, a drug approved to help people lose weight, also helps regular smokers stop smoking. The findings were reported today by Eisai Inc. and Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc., who offer lorcaserin HCl under the brand name Belviq. The companies say more results will be reported at…