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November 2012 Volume 8, Issue 11

Volume 8, Issue 11 | November 2012

In this Issue

Tools & Technology

Life Technologies acquires Compendia Bioscience

Bioinformatics expertise completes foundation of Life Technologies’ oncology strategy

A new view for Bruker

Bruker to acquire Carestream’s preclinical in-vivo imaging business

REFS for a different kind of judgment call

GNS Healthcare, Covance to create computer models to predict drug development success

Keeping methyltransferases simple

BellBrook Labs and Reaction Biology collaborate on screening of methyltransferases for epigenetic drug discovery

Global News

Takeda goes viral

Takeda buys LigoCyte Pharmaceuticals for $60 million cash, adds norovirus vaccine to global pipeline

Generating growth with Genfar

Acquisition of Colombia-based company expands Sanofi’s Latin American presence, boosts animal health portfolio

Making renal disease a top priority

AstraZeneca to pay as much as $272.5 million plus royalties for license to Ardelyx’s NHE3 inhibitor program

Nanobodies for voltage-gated ion channels

Ablynx and Merck to develop therapeutic nanobody candidates in potential half-billion-dollar deal

A match made in MDS

Baxter, Onconova to partner on anti-cancer compound for MDS, pancreatic cancer

Diagnostics

Narrowing in on NuroPro

Amarantus, RBCC to focus on Parkinson’s diagnostic in joint venture

Two new partners for Life

Life Technologies to partner with Bristol-Myers Squibb and CollabRx for companion diagnostics development

PROOF, MRM Proteomics turn the peptides

Protein signatures could become companion diagnostics to optimize drug discovery and patient care management

A diagnostic boost to therapeutic success

ImaginAb and Lundbeck to collaborate in neurodegeneration deal revolving around central nervous system imaging with biologics

Research & Development

All for one, one for all

Ten leading pharmas form nonprofit organization dedicated to alleviating clinical trial bottlenecks

Matchmaking in the Midwest

BioSante and ANI Pharmaceutical merge in all-stock deal

Immunological inhibitor

Astellas enters into license agreement with Janssen for RA therapy

MJFF invests $5 million in Vandy-BMS Parkinson’s collaboration

Research targets the neurotransmitter glutamate

A tremendous trio

CRI, Ludwig, MedImmune to test immunotherapy combinations for treatment of cancer

Life-science companies launch rare disease research competition

Assay Depot and Rare Genomics Institute announced Oct. 15 that they have partnered with 19 life-science companies to launch the first Rare Disease Science Challenge

Omics & Systems Biology

Toward early dementia intervention

Janssen-funded public-private partnership compares Down Syndrome to Alzheimer’s disease

Innovation, visibility and survival

Complete Genomics and BGI-Shenzhen announce merger agreement

Of a giant and a gnome

Illumina acquires BlueGnome, a provider of cytogenetics and in-vitro fertilization screening solutions

Preparing to launch personalized medicine

Air Force longitudinal study aims to prepare healthcare providers for a world rife with personal genomic information

HR-TOFMS for the metabolome

LECO and Berkeley Lab partner on metabolomics research

Government Watch

Patent saga persists

ACLU and PUBPAT ask Supreme Court to disallow Myriad patents on breast cancer genes

Meningitis outbreak plagues pharma industry

Regulators want more oversight of compounding pharmacies and regulation parity with drug manufacturers

A third way for India

Supreme Court of India sets deadline for government to present national pharmaceutical pricing policy

The great debate, 21st century-style

Presidential Commission for Study of Bioethical Issues tackles privacy issues in whole-genome sequencing

Commentary

Changing dynamics in the pharma and biotech industries

Reorganization, mergers and acquisitions (M&As), consolidation and portfolio changes are being evaluated to maintain growth centers in the face of a myriad of serious challenges. Overall, companies are looking to align with areas of growth opportunity as well as new business strategy and product development paradigms.

I’m not sure about this, but …

Personalized medicine is intended to add several layers of information into the treatment decision to make it more likely that a patient will perform as desired during treatment or perhaps more accurately, that we’ll know how a patient will perform during treatment. But personalized medicine is an incredible uphill battle, as many companies and organizations have seen over the last decade.

Editor's Focus

Pharma industry awaits impact of Obama’s second term

Now that the American people have spoken—with about 120 million votes estimated to have been cast as we went to press with this issue—and reelected President Barack Obama to a second term, many of you may be asking, “How will this affect pharma?”

Special Reports

Signals in the noise (Part 1 of 2)

Informatics challenges hinder progress in personalized medicine development

Signals in the noise (Part 2 of 2)