Internal Medicine

COMPETITIVE PRESSURES and economic realities demand that pharmaceutical developers extract as much value as possible from drug discovery programs. Complicating this imperative are the seemingly endless paradigm shifts within discovery science. Although medicinal chemistry has always been part of the picture, over the last 20 years, the discovery model has evolved from pure med chem to incorporate varying components of computational chemistry, high-throughput methods and rational design. Today’s discovery programs are likely to employ all these methods.

Illumina announced recently that it has partnered with UK-based Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (WTSI) and Wellcome Trust Case-Control Consortium on an ambitious genomics and proteomics project. The goal: to enable Wellcome to better correlate genetic variation and gene function with particular disease states, thus enhancing drug discovery, allowing diseases to be detected earlier and permitting better choices of drugs for individual patients.

Ambion Inc., a provider of RNA analysis tools and reagents, recently announced it formalized a license and supply agreement with GE Healthcare whereby GE will manufacture for Ambion its mirVana line of microRNA (miRNA) microarrays using GE’s CodeLink bioarray technology. The mirVana miRNA bioarrays include a comprehensive panel of known human, mouse and rat miRNAs as well as Ambion’s proprietary, non-published microRNAs, Ambi-miRs.

Celliance Corp., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Serologicals Corp., recently acquired the ubiquitous chromatin opening element (UCOE) gene expression technology from Innovata, a United Kingdom-based product development company working on respiratory diseases and inhaled medications. The companies did not disclose the sum paid for the technology.

Strand Life Sciences, an in silico technologies company, has entered into a research collaboration with Elan Pharmaceuticals with the aim of supporting Elan’s drug discovery efforts. Elan Pharmaceuticals is a wholly owned subsidiary of Elan Corp., a Dublin, Ireland-based neuroscience-oriented biotechnology company that is focused on discovering, developing, manufacturing and marketing therapies in the areas of neurology, autoimmune diseases and severe pain.

Several years ago, I read a short joke that as much as anything was a commentary on the cycle of medicine development over the ages.

In late summer, instrumentation powerhouse Waters Corp. and bioinformatics provider Nonlinear Dynamics announced a co-development and co-marketing agreement that will result in an integrated bioinformatics package for protein identification and quantitative protein profiling using Waters’ ProteinLynx Global Server and Nonlinear’s Progenesis 2D gel informatics platform.

Imaging specialist Gamma Medica-Ideas (GM-I) recently announced the installation of a FLEX preclinical SPECT/CT system at the Houston-based MD Anderson Cancer Center. The new system will allow Dr. Juri Gelovani, chairman of experimental diagnostic imaging, and his colleagues to develop new methods for imaging tumors for cancer diagnosis and monitoring the targeting and efficacy of tumor-specific drugs.

SpinX Technologies, a provider of biological assay technology, recently secured Euro 10 million ($12.5 million) in Series B financing led by Bio Fund Management. Also involved in the financing—which will support the further development and initial commercialization of SpinX’s programmable microfluidics platform to perform biological assays—were Index Ventures, Auriga Partners, DFJ ePlanet Ventures and the CERN Pension Fund.

In early September, Caliper Life Sciences announced it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Hanover, Md.-based NovaScreen Biosciences Corp., a privately-held company that provides screening, profiling and assay development services for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies worldwide and for government agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health.

MultiCell Technologies Inc., will leverage its human hepatocyte line and associated products by developing therapeutics on its own through a new majority-owned subsidiary, Monticello Immunotherapeutics Inc. In conjunction with the formation of Monticello, MultiCell recently acquired the intellectual property and equipment of Astral Inc., a San Diego-based biotechnology company that focuses on the development of novel therapies for the treatment of type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, cancer and infectious disease.