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VC Fund Gains $100M for University, Defense Lab Spinoffs
Allied Minds, a venture capital (VC) company in Boston starting companies that commercialize research from university and U.S. federal labs, raised $100 million for its next series of investments. The company says closing this funding round brings its total assets to about $500 million. Allied Minds makes early-stage investments, sometimes soon after the point of…
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AstraZeneca, Roche to Share Preclinical Research Data
The global pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca and Roche agreed to share early-stage drug research data to speed product development and identify candidates with a greater chance of success. Financial aspects of the collaboration were not disclosed. The two companies will furnish their research data on investigational compounds to a third party, MedChemica, a computational chemistry service…
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Device Detects Residual Cancer in Lumpectomy Tissue
Biomedical engineering graduate students at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore developed a device that allows pathologists to quickly test excised tissue from breast cancer patients undergoing lumpectomies to determine if all of the tumor is removed. The device, still a prototype, has received awards in student engineering and business competitions, and its continued development is…
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Inexpensive Eye Test Measures Pleasure Response to Food
Nutrionists at Drexel University in Philadelphia and St. Luke’s/Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York showed the ability of a routine ophthalmology test to indicate a high pleasure response to food, a potential tool for analyzing food addictions and obesity therapies. The team led by Drexel’s Jennifer Nasser published their findings online last week in the…
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Supreme Court Rules Federal Drug Rules Preempt State Laws
The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday ruled 5-4 that in cases involving generic drugs, federal laws take precedence over an individual’s right to sue in state courts. The case, Mutual Pharmaceutical Co., v. Bartlett, overturned lower-court rulings in favor of the plaintiff, who sued the generic drug manufacturer Mutual Pharmaceutical — now part of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries…
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Intensive Care Units in U.K. Cut Blood Infection Rates
Intensive care units at hospitals in England sharply cut their rates of serious blood stream infections over a two-year period, according to researchers at University of Leicester and University of Birmingham in the U.K. The latest results were reported last week in the journal Implementation Science, following up on an evaluation of an infection-reduction program…
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Late-Stage Trial to Test Biosimilar Psoriasis Treatment
The Sandoz division of the global pharmaceutical company Novartis started a late stage clinical trial of a treatment for psoriasis biologically similar to the therapy etanercept, marketed by Amgen and Pfizer as Enbrel. The trial is expected to support the company’s application for regulatory approval in the U.S. and Europe. Biosimilars is the name given…
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3-D Cellular-Level Brain Atlas and Database Developed
Neuroscientists at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine in Jülich, Germany, with colleagues from other institutes in Germany, developed a three-dimensional atlas of the brain, providing ultra-high resolution and the ability to zoom into different parts of the brain down to the cellular level. The team led by Alan Evans…
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FDA Grants Breakthrough Status to Heart Failure Drug
The pharmaceutical company Novartis, based in Switzerland, says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration designated its drug candidate RLX030 (serelaxin) a breakthrough therapy for the treatment of acute heart failure. Serelaxin is an engineered form of the natural hormone human relaxin-2 proposed for use in emergency rooms. FDA assigns breakthrough status to expedite drugs in…
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Light-Enabled Nanoparticles Detect Early Infection Signs
Biomedical and genomic researchers at Duke University in North Carolina developed a technique with light and silver nanoparticles to detect infections earlier than when patients may even report symptoms. The team led by biomedical engineering professor Tuan Vo-Dinh and genomic medicine professor Geoffrey Ginsburg published its findings online in a recent issue of the journal…