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July 2014 Volume 10, Issue 7

Volume 10, Issue 7 | July 2014

In this Issue

Business & Government Policy

Merck makes big HCV move with Idenix deal

$3.85-billion acquisition aims to expand Merck’s hepatitis pipeline and dethrone Gilead

Hikma to purchase Bedford Laboratories, Ben Venue site

Acquisition may lead to re-launch of several Bedford products

Ventrus Biosciences to merge with Assembly Pharmaceuticals

Combined company will focus on developing Assembly’s first-in-class small molecules for hepatitis B treatment

Patent Docs - Meeting Recap: BIO 2014 International Convention highlights

Patent Office guidelines, as well as Mayo and Myriad cases, loomed large for presenters, attendees

Gut reaction

Takeda’s Entyvio gets FDA and EU approval for ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease

Epigenomics provides update on Epi proColon in the U.S.

Recent meeting between the company and the FDA involved detailed discussions regarding the design of upcoming clinical study

Research & Development

T cells against cancer

Adaptimmune and GSK collaborate on $350-million oncology-oriented immunotherapy pact

BMS looks to Probodies for select cancer targets

Bristol-Myers Squibb strikes deal with CytomX Therapeutics worth up to $348 million

Having a go at HER2

The recent discovery of a link between protein PTP1B and HER2 could provide a new therapeutic target

Ohr acquires assets from SKS Ocular

Ohr Pharmaceutical to pay $3.5 million up front for tech platform and preclinical candidates

Trying to head off cancer

Antitope and BIIR to work on cell line for novel therapeutic dendritic-cell-targeting vaccine

Preclinical

A call for balance

NIH to require grant applicants to report cell, animal sexes in preclinical studies

A Cambridge combination

Horizon to acquire Zalicus’ CombinatoRx business and assets for $8 million

From intoxication to ADHD

Alcobra presents results showing new potential for MDX as treatment for cognitive disorders

Seeing the whole picture

Imaging system offers view of complete nervous system

Turning T cells on … and off

Inovio Pharmaceuticals acquires early-stage DNA therapies to treat Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis

Special Reports

Special Report on Cell Biology: Life moves on

Physics, chemistry and informatics combine to push life into the 4th dimension

Q&A

Q&A: In Parkinson’s disease, a new treatment for ‘off’ periods

DDNews talks with Anthony Giovinazzo of Cynapsus Therapeutics about his company's drug candidate, APL-130277, an easy-to-administer, fast-acting reformulation of apomorphine

Editor's Focus

Keeping in touch with all of you

As we move into summer and I've settled more comfortably into the chief editor's chair, it's time to step up our social media activity, and to let you know about our new Facebook page

Commentary

Out of Order: Modestly modeled

Randall C Willis talks about what's wrong with the disease models we currently use to discover and develop therapeutics and points us in the general direction of where we need to go to get models more in line with reality

Commentary: Personalized medicine--Bridging the gaps

Current and emerging technologies capable of providing person-specific data far outpace the ability to effectively mine that data to draw clinical conclusions and develop clinically relevant products

Diagnostics

A companion for Revlimid

NanoString inks $45-million deal to develop diagnostic test for Celgene drug

Agena Bioscience acquires Sequenom unit

Deal to expand Agena’s diagnostic market and advance its UltraSEEK technology is worth $35.8 million

From biopsies to blood-based testing

Merck Serono, Sysmex Inostics seek a blood-based RAS biomarker test for colorectal cancer patients

Cancer Genetics partners with AstraZeneca

Agreement on biomarker and molecular-based testing expands reach of Cancer Genetics’ services

July 2014