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February 2010 Volume 6, Issue 2

Volume 6, Issue 2 | February 2010

In this Issue

Global News

Not seeing eye-to-eye

Novartis seeks to acquire eye giant Alcon, but is meeting resistance

Pardon the disruption

Roche and Evolva use discovery platform to create compounds that mimic those that are naturally occurring

Taking aim at cancer

Merck strikes deal with Cancer Research UK for investigational anti-cancer drug targeting leukemia and lymphoma

Teva expands pipeline

Company inks license agreement to commercialize OncoGenex’s late-stage treatment for cancer

Research & Development

Pfizer ‘invests to win’

Following Wyeth merger, multiple recent deals and job layoffs, pharma refocuses drug development pipeline

The path of least resistance

AstraZeneca acquires Novexel, expands collaboration with Forest Laboratories in effort to boost antibiotic pipeline

Inflammation collaboration

Eli Lilly and Incyte strike worldwide license and collaboration deal for the development and commercialization of Incyte's oral JAK1/JAK2 inhibitor for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases

Ambit and Astellas Pharma: Working to release your inhibitors

They aim to develop FLT3 kinase inhibitors for AML and more

Fragile hope for brain disorders

Seaside Therapeutics, Vanderbilt collaborate on novel therapeutics to treat Fragile X, autism, other brain disorders

Contract Services

Chorus hits high notes for Lilly

Special R&D unit takes control of compounds discovered in other companies’ labs

PPD completes acquisition of BioDuro

Pharmaceutical Product Development Inc. finalizes acquisition of BioDuro, a drug discovery outsourcing company focused on integrated drug discovery programs and services

Contract research market eyes growth

Market research reports find many pressures facing pharma, biotech companies lead them to outsource research services

Good planning, good results

Quintiq provides advanced planning and scheduling platform to global CRO PRA International

Diagnostics

Let's make a deal

Bio-Rad Laboratories completes purchase of certain diagnostics businesses of Biotest AG for $67.5 million

Cancer leaves its (bio)mark

Strategic Diagnostics and Fred Hutchinson Cancer seek biomarkers for use in early detection of a variety of cancers

Defining cancer by pathways

Clarient’s acquisition of Applied Genomics targets NSCLC diagnostics

Last-minute holiday shopping bags OncoDiagnotics for Predictive Biosciences

Predictive Biosciences did a little last-minute holiday shopping in December, closing a deal to acquire Cleveland-based OncoDiagnostic Laboratory

Affomix to provide antibodies for Kalgene’s companion diagnostics program

Horizon Discovery launches new companion diagnostics venture

Response Genetics, Genetic Technologies to distribute molecular diagnostic tests globally

Instruments & Informatics

Sorting it all out

OncoMed Pharmaceuticals and Fluidigm Corp. announce strategic collaboration aimed at sorting and analyzing tumor cells, especially cancer stem cells

Hawkeyeish on technology

DNASTAR and the University of Iowa sign Lasergene site license agreement

In it together

Thermo and Cerilliant offer certified solution standards for forensic and clinical research laboratories

Partnering on pathways

GeneGo links informatics software to Sigma-Aldrich products

Omics & Systems Biology

Getting the fat in

MIT and Alnylam researchers find way to turn off multiple genes at once with RNAi therapy

Streamlined sequencing for sale

Agilent Technologies and Covaris sign co-marketing agreement pairing target enrichment with DNA shearing for next-gen sequencing

Power times two

Silence Therapeutics merges with Intradigm Corp. to create RNAi therapeutics company

Bringing in the proteome

ALS research organization teams up with Applied Proteomics to work on biomarker development

Editor's Focus

Cleveland: The next biotech hub?

Couls we attract biotech and pharma companies to Cleveland, where the median home price is about $106,000, and opportunities to work with some of the country’s most highly regarded hospital and educational institutions — the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), to name two — abound?

Patent News

Why are drugs expensive in the U.S.? Because other countries decide to pay less

Pfizer is continuing its fight with generic drug manufacturer United Laboratories =in the Philippines over the issue of the validity of the patent on Lipitor as Unilab tries to have the patent canceled.

Commentary

Guest Commentary: Academic institutions play active role in early-stage drug discovery process

In the past decade, the role academic intuitions play in drug discovery has evolved, with more emphasis being placed on finding the chemical compounds that can modulate that promising target.

February 2010