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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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Early Human Trial Tests Ultrasound to Heal Venous Ulcers
Biomedical engineers at Drexel University in Philadelphia designed an ultrasound device, which early tests show can speed healing of venous skin ulcers that are normally slow to heal. The team led by engineering professor Peter Lewin expects to publish its findings later this month in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Venous skin…
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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…
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NIH Funds Three New Neurologic Drug Discovery Projects
National Institutes of Health is funding three new neurological drug research initiatives to address Fragile X syndrome, nicotine addiction, and age-related macular degeneration. Awards for the three projects, from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), total nearly $446,000. The three studies are funded under the Neurotherapeutics Network, part of the NIH Blueprint…
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FibroGen, AstraZeneca Partner on Kidney-Based Anemia Therapy
The global pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is licensing a therapy for anemia caused by kidney disease made by FibroGen, a biotechnology company in San Francisco. The deal is valued initially at $815 million, and covers the U.S., China, and other markets not covered by an earlier FibroGen license to Astellas Pharma for commercialization in Europe, Japan,…
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Sugary Drink Taxes Can Cut Calories, Health Impact Limited
Economists and public health researchers at RTI International and Duke University in North Carolina, and U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast that taxes on sugary drinks can reduce the calorie intake of consumers, but the overall health impact is limited by consumers shifting to other less healthy, but untaxed, items. Chen Zhen and colleagues published their…
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Nanowire Coating Boosts Bone Bonding to Implant Material
Materials scientists and biomedical engineers at Ohio State University in Columbus designed a coating of nanowires that can help improve the bonding between human bone and implant materials. The team led by Ohio State materials scientist Sheikh Akbar published its results in this month’s issue of the journal Ceramics International (paid subscription required). The process…
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Engineers Double Efficiency of Solar Film Cells
Engineers and materials scientists at University of California in Los Angeles improved the design of solar cells built in a thin semi-transparent film that nearly doubles their ability to generate power. A team from the lab of engineering professor Yang Yang described its findings online in Friday’s issue of the journal Energy and Environmental Science…