Science and Enterprise

Tag: Japan

  • Trial Shows Drug Not Extending Breast Cancer Survival Time

    25 July 2014. A late-stage clinical trial of the cancer drug sorafenib shows the drug, combined with the chemotherapy drug capecitabine, does not extend the amount of progression-free survival time of advanced breast cancer patients, compared to capecitabine alone. Sorafenib, marketed under the brand name Nexavar, is made by Onyx Pharmaceuticals in South San Francisco,…

  • Electronic Circuits Developed That Become Flexible in Body

    13 May 2014. Engineers and material scientists from University of Texas in Dallas and University of Tokyo in Japan developed electronic circuits encased in polymers that become flexible and adapt their shape to three-dimensional objects when implanted in mammals. The team from the labs of Walter Voit in Dallas and Takao Someya in Tokyo published…

  • 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,…

  • Pharma Alliance Extends Cancer Antibodies to Eye Disorders

    4 March 2014. Santen Pharmaceutical Co. in Osaka, Japan is licensing antibodies developed as a cancer therapy by Tracon Pharmaceuticals in San Diego as treatments for eye diseases. Tracon is expected to earn $10 million in an upfront payment from Santen, as well as undisclosed milestone payments and royalties. Tracon develops biologic therapies for cancer,…

  • 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…

  • Radiation Sensors Launched in Open-Source Satellites

    Radiation sensors made by Libelium, a developer of wireless sensor hardware in Zaragoza, Spain are part of the payload contained in CubeSat satellites launched this past weekend on a cargo mission by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. The sensors are part of the first two ArduSat satellites made by open-platform satellite maker NanoSatisfi in San…

  • Ball-Mounted Cam Provides Unique View of Football Field

    Engineers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and University of Electro-Communications (UEC) in Tokyo designed a miniature video camera mounted inside a football, with an algorithm to process the images, to provide a view of the game rarely, if ever, seen. Carnegie Mellon’s Kris Katani and UEC’s Kodai Horita will describe their system in a…

  • Takeda Pharma to Acquire Envoy Therapeutics

    Takeda Pharmaceuticals, in Osaka, Japan, will acquire the drug discovery company Envoy Therapeutics in Jupiter, Florida for $140 million. Takeda says the merger will mean moving Envoy’s management and scientific staff to Takeda’s San Diego offices after March 2013. Envoy was founded by biophysicist and 2000 Nobel prize winner Paul Greengard, and Rockefeller University colleague…

  • Merck, Seiko Epson to Partner on Organic LED Inkjet Inks

    The chemical company Merck in Darmstadt, Germany will license ink-jet ink technology from electronics manufacturer Seiko Epson in Tokyo for the manufacture of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) television displays. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. OLEDs use thin films of carbon-based materials — thus the name “organic” — placed between two conductors. When…

  • FDA Approves Drug to Treat Seizures in Epilepsy Patients

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the drug perampanel, given in tablet form to treat partial onset seizures in patients with epilepsy ages 12 years and older. Perampanel is marketed under the brand name Fycompa by Eisai Inc. of Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, and headquartered in Tokyo. Epilepsy is a brain disorder characterized seizures…