Research Areas

At the 65th Annual American Diabetes Association Meeting, Entelos presented data from their collaboration with the ADA in two poster sessions. One poster described a comprehensive analysis on the time-dependent effects of treatment in a mouse model for human type 1 diabetes. The other presentation described the company's Type 1 Diabetes PhysioLab modeling platform, which offers large-scale mathematical simulations of disease pathology and therapeutic intervention in the model mice.

Corixa announced that the waiting period imposed by Hart-Scott-Rodino Act for their proposed sale to GSK Biologicals has expired. Corixa stockholders will attend a special meeting on July 12, 2005 at Corixa's corporate headquarters to consider the adoption of the agreement. The two companies expect to complete the agreement quickly thereafter and when all conditions to the transaction are satisfied or waived.

Neurologix, Inc. has licensed the humanin gene from Keio University in Tokyo, an agreement providing Neuro-logix exclusive worldwide rights (excluding Japan) to develop and commercialize therapeutics to treat brain and other central nervous system (CNS) disorders (excluding amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) using the technology. The humanin gene will be used in combination with Neurologix’s proprietary gene transfer technology and is expected to be the company’s lead compound for a novel and promising approach to Alzheimer’s disease.

The Ohio State University College of Medicine and BioImagene, a bio-image analysis products company based here, have signed an agreement to engage in numerous collaborative activities, including joint research proposals at the state and national levels, joint projects with profit potential, and other mutually beneficial activities.

Integrative analytical technology specialist InforSense announced in May the licensing of its workflow-based informatics platforms by the Windber Research Institute (WRI), a biomedical research center looking for cures to genetic and metabolic diseases. The two organizations will work together to develop a production-quality, generic informatics framework for translational medicine to be used by WRI and its clinical collaborators.

GeneEd and Zenosis, two companies focused on delivering e-learning curricula for the pharmaceutical industry, announced in early May they will work together to provide a single, end-to-end educational service for life science companies. The combination of services will provide courses in everything from basic life science skills all the way to clearing regulatory hurdles for drug approval.

Insightful Corp. announced in mid-May that it received two awards for bioinformatics work under the U.S. government’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. A Phase II contract with the U.S. Air Force (USAF) and a Phase I grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are worth a total of approximately $850,000. Both projects involve Insightful’s InFact software, which performs natural language-based analysis and search functions on large quantities of text.

Roche Diagnostics announced in early May that it had entered into an exclusive, five-year, world-wide agreement for the development, promotion, sale and distribution of 454 Life Science’s nanotechnology-based Genome Sequencing Systems, including proprietary kits and reagents. Under the terms of the agreement, 454, a division of CuraGen Corp., will receive up to $62 million in license fees, milestone payments related to instrument releases, minimum royalties and research funding.

AA Peptides, LLC, doing business as AAPPTec (Advanced Automated Peptide Protein Technologies), announced in May it purchased the instrument division of Advanced ChemTech (ACT). Hossain Saneii, AAPPTec’s chief operating officer, said AAPPTec will manufacture and sell parts and instruments, and provide continued customer service and technical support for ACT peptide manufacturing equipment. The ACT technology is “well-known in the peptide field,” says Saneii, “very established” and capable of all scales of peptide production. AAPPTec also obtained patent rights to the instruments.

BD Diagnostics announced in early May that it had acquired German proteomics and instrumentation provider FFE Weber GmbH. The purchase gives BD a foothold in the growing proteomics research market as well as a technology the company feels could become an important diagnostic tool in the coming years.