Tag: preclinical
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Light-Activated Hydrogel, Stem Cells Recreate Knee Cartilage
Biomedical engineers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore designed a gel-like biomaterial that in a pilot study showed it could help heal damaged knee cartilage. The team led by Jennifer Elisseeff, director of the university’s Translational Tissue Engineering Center, published its findings in last week’s issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine (paid subscription required).…
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University Biotech Spinoff Secures $38M Venture Funding
Naurex Inc., a spin-off company from Northwestern University creating neurological and psychiatric drugs, closed a $38 million series B venture round, the second financing cycle after start-up. Financing for the Evanston, Illinois biotechnology company was led by new investor Baxter Ventures, and joined by new investor Savitr Capital, as well as 10 current backers including…
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MD Anderson, GlaxoSmithKline Partner on Cancer Immunotherapy
MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, part of the University of Texas, and the global pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline will jointly conduct research leading to new therapeutic antibodies that help the immune system fight cancer. The agreement over its full lifetime could earn MD Anderson as much as $335 million. The agreement gives GlaxoSmithKline exclusive worldwide…
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Genomics Biotech Raises $40 Million in Venture Funds
Moderna Therapeutics, a biotechnology start-up in Cambridge, Massachusetts developing therapies harnessing messenger RNA, secured some $40 million in venture funding. The financing for this round was led by Flagship Ventures that incubated Moderna Therapeutics, and includes other unamed private investors. The two-year-old company, founded and based on research by scientists at Harvard University and MIT,…
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Nanotech Strategy Developed for Solid Tumor Drug Delivery
Researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, with colleagues from Munich Technical University and Helmholtz Center Munich, engineered a gene that can generate anti-cancer agents deep inside solid cancerous tumors. The team led by Ludwig-Maximilians pharmacologist Manfred Ogris reported its findings online yesterday in the journal Molecular Therapy (paid subscription required). Ogris (pictured right) and colleagues…
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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…
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Company, University Share Stem Cell Research Funds
Researchers at StemCells Inc. in Newark, California and University of California in Irvine will share a $20 million award from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to conduct research on stem cells leading to clinical trials to treat cervical spinal cord injury. The grant was one of several awards announced last week by CIRM,…
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NIH to Fund Development of Organ-On-Chip Devices
National Institutes of Health will support 17 research initiatives leading to development of microfluidic chips that simulate the structure and function of human organs. NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences is funding the projects for five years at a total cost of $70 million. The project involves collaboration with the Defense Advanced Research Projects…
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Microneedle System Developed to Deliver Drugs to Eyes
Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University in Atlanta have developed a system of microneedles to deliver drugs to the back of the eye. The research team’s findings appear in the July issue of the journal Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science (paid subscription required). The microneedles were devised to meet a need for…
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Nanoscale Drug Delivery Process Helps Cancer Treatment
Researchers from Yale University’s medical and engineering faculties in New Haven have devised a new technique for delivering cancer treatments that also boosts a response by the immune system. The findings of the research, funded by a National Science Foundation grant, and led by Yale University biomedical engineering professor Tarek Fahmy (pictured right) are found…