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U.S. Patent Granted for Simple Dry-Powder Drug Inhaler
7 April 2014. Medical device manufacturer Hovione International in Lisbon, Portugal, received a patent for its inhaler for administering respiratory drugs in dry powder form. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded patent 8,677,992 on 25 March to three inventors and assigned to Hovione International. Among the inventors is Peter Villax, the company’s vice-president for innovation.…
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Clinical Trial to Test Advanced Lung Cancer Immunotherapy
7 April 2014. EMD Serono, a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical company Merck in Rockland, Massachusetts, is beginning a clinical trial to test a vaccine-type therapy for advanced cases of non-small cell lung cancer. The late-stage trial is assessing the ability of tecemotide, an experimental drug designed to trigger an immune response against cancer cells, to…
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Cancer Radiotherapy Company Lands $11.6M First Round Funds
4 April 2014. RefleXion Medical, a company in Burlingame, California designing a more accurate form of radiation therapy to treat solid tumors, gained $11.6 million in its first round of venture financing. The financing was lead by venture capital company Sofinnova Partners, with participation by Pfizer Venture Investments and Venrock. RefleXion Medical is developing a…
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Daiichi Sankyo, UCSF Partner on Neurodegenerative Disorders
4 April 2014. The pharmaceutical company Daiichi Sankyo in Tokyo and University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) are collaborating on discovering new drugs to treat neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. While funding amounts were not disclosed, the deal gives Daiichi Sankyo the option to license compounds discovered through the partnership,…
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Poplar Trees Engineered to Produce More Biofuels, Wood Pulp
3 April 2014. Researchers at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, a consortium of University of Wisconsin in Madison and Michigan State University in East Lansing, created a genetically modified poplar tree variety with weakened lignin bonds, making it easier to process into commercial biofuels and wood pulp. The team from the labs of Wisconsin’s…
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Baxter Acquiring Hemophilia Gene-Therapy Biotech Company
3 April 2014. Baxter International, a pharmaceutical and medical products company in Deerfield, Illinois is buying Chatham Therapeutics LLC, a developer of gene therapy to treat hemophilia. Under the agreement, Baxter will acquire outstanding LLC interests in Chatham for $70 million, but future milestone payments are also possible. The acquisition gives Baxter access to all…
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Trial Shows Gene Test Improves Lung Cancer Diagnostics
2 April 2014. Allegro Diagnostics Corp. in Maynard, Massachusetts says results from a clinical trial testing its genomic technique for diagnosing lung cancer more accurately predicts development of the disease among former smokers than standard bronchoscopies working alone. The company plans to discuss the findings next month at an American Thoracic Society meeting in San…
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Patent Awarded for Cancer Antibody Delivery Technology
2 April 2014. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office awarded a patent for a technology that connects antibodies and cancer drugs to target and deliver treatments directly to tumor cells. Patent number 8,685,383 was awarded yesterday to nine inventors and assigned to Mersana Therapeutics Inc., a biopharmaceutical company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Timothy Lowinger, Mersana’s chief…
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Texas Spin-Off Company Offers Stem Cell Therapy for Pets
1 April 2014. A new start-up enterprise founded by biomedical engineers at University of Texas in San Antonio offers individualized stem cell therapies for animals at veterinarians’ offices. Mobile Stem Care LLC is the creation of doctoral students Tony Yuan and Ramon Coronado that began in August 2013. Mobile Stem Cell offers an on-site lab for…
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EMD Serono, Pfizer, Broad Institute Partner on Lupus Markers
1 April 2014. EMD Serono, a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical company Merck in Rockland, Massachusetts, is joining with the drug maker Pfizer and Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT to identify genomic biomarkers of two types of lupus. The research is funded by EMD Serono and Pfizer, but financial aspects of the agreement were not…