Home / Archive / October 2011

October 2011 Volume 7, Issue 10

Volume 7, Issue 10 | October 2011

In this Issue

Global News

Taking aim at Alzheimer’s

Evotec, Roche to partner on development of Alzheimer’s treatment

An affinity for Graffinity

NovAliX and Galapagos collaborate in osteoarthritis discovery research program

Small but mighty

Ascenta Therapeutics licenses experimental small-molecule cancer drug candidate to Debiopharm

Lilliputian meets Brobdingnagian

Astellas Pharma signs a license agreement with Evec for a fully human antibody

U.K. union has great chemistry

Cresset, Redx Pharma to collaborate on drug discovery for a wide range of therapeutic areas

Instruments & Informatics

Looking beyond imaging and detection

PerkinElmer acquires Caliper Life Sciences for approximately $600 million, with eye toward expansion into preclinical work and companion Dx

Going with the flow

EMD Millipore acquires cell-imaging instrument maker Amnis

Broadway boogie-woogie

NuGEN will partner with Advanced Liquid Logic to co-develop Mondrian-like microfluidic sample preparation automation

On a kidney quest

Critical Path Institute’s collaboration with Pharsight explores new model in battle against kidney disease

Sweet deal for Agilent in Asia

Agilent Technologies and Chungnam National University team up to push glycomics research forward

Aridhia, Glencoe Software create data analysis products

Aridhia Informatics Ltd., a multidisciplinary health informatics company, recently partnered with Glencoe Software to create products to aid the development of personalized therapies and deliver improved patient outcomes.

Research & Development

Digging in the dirt

Researchers at the universities of Nottingham and Maastricht make headway in the use of the bacteria strain Clostridia as a way to safely and effectively deliver drugs to tumor sites

Acquisition is par for the course

Par Pharmaceutical acquires rival Anchen Pharmaceuticals for $410 million

Stem cell breakthroughs within Cyte?

BioTime’s ReCyte and OncoCyte subsidiaries ink pact with Cornell on vascular cells derived from hESCs

Stem cells offer new hope for MS patients

Cleveland-based research team use the mesenchymal stem cells of MS patients to treat the debilitating disease

Specificity counts in Merck deal

Zymeworks Inc. to collaborate with Merck on developing bi-specific antibody Therapeutics

Merck Serono, F-Star, ink inflammatory disease deal

Baxter acquires privately held Baxa, establishes investment arm

Omics & Systems Biology

PTH at picograms

Thermo Fisher Scientific acquires Intrinsic Bioprobes to enhance workflow for biomarker research and diagnostics

Lessons in lifestyle and lipids

Shimadzu and the University of Tokyo to develop lipidomics technology for biomarker discovery

On the hunt for genetic clues

HudsonAlpha Institute, U of Michigan search for genetic links to bipolar disorder

Not just an expression

Clavis, Skyline team up on biomarkers for AML drug

Think about the orphans

Synageva BioPharma enters R&D partnership with Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma to develop protein therapeutic for orphan disease target

Complete Genomics, Inova Health System to sequence the genomes of 500 babies and parents

Diagnostics

Billion-dollar boost

GE's health business unit earmarks $1 billion for cancer diagnostics and molecular imaging

Queue up with QIAGEN

QIAGEN announces companion Dx partnerships with Pfizer, Lilly

Colorectal cancer compatriots

Arizona State and China's Sun Yat-sen University to develop early diagnostics against colorectal cancer

Together again against prostate cancer

Genomatix and Uniformed Service University build on previous work to seek prognostic genetic markers through next-gen sequencing

Irish blessing

Queen\'s University of Belfast and Almac agree to work on cancer tests

TrovaGene licenses Hairy Cell Leukemia assay

TrovaGene Inc., a developer of transrenal molecular diagnostics to facilitate personalized medicine, has signed a worldwide exclusive license for an assay that detects Hairy Cell Leukemia (HCL).

Commentary

Multi-parameter optimization: The delicate balancing act of drug discovery

Dealing with complex, multi-parameter data with high uncertainty is an enormous challenge. One must consider the overall balance of properties as early as possible in the process to focus on chemistries with the best chance of quick progress and downstream success.

Taxes, innovation and life science jobs

It's time to stop defining the problem and start defining solutions.

Editor's Focus

Announcing the ddn Cancer Research Portal: Your gateway to the latest oncology news, trends and resources

Cancer research dominates nearly every section of our newspaper and other news vehicles. That’s why we decided to launch our latest news division, the ddn Cancer Research Portal, your gateway to the latest oncology news, trends and resources.

Contract Services

Building on a strong foundation

ICON selected as a preferred provider for early-phase clinical development by Bristol-Myers Squibb

Blueprint for neurotherapeutics

AMRI wins five-year, $43 million federal contract award

Build it and they will come

Start-up research institute forms strategic alliance with LabCorp Clinical Trials to offer specialized biomarker and assay development services

Advantar partners with DavosPharma

Companies collaborating to broaden service offerings for U.S. clients

October 2011