LONDON – Scientists have teased out a molecular mechanism that allows synapses to respond as quickly or as slowly as required for all neurological functions ranging from simple movements to cognitive function. The finding provides a key to how neurons can provide a constant stockpile of neurotransmitter-filled synaptic vesicles, ready to be released at the synapse when needed. Nils Brose, director of the department of molecular neurobiology at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine
By Sharon Kingman | BioWorld International | Wednesday, June 19, 2013
DUBLIN, Ireland – In a sharp slap in the face to the company's management and its would-be acquirer Royalty Pharma, shareholders in Elan Corp. plc voted down three of four motions tabled at an extraordinary general meeting Monday. The move scuppers Royalty's bid, which was contingent on the rejection of all four proposals. But it also represents an overwhelming vote of no confidence in the M&A strategy that Elan CEO Kelly Martin put together with his management team since it sold its interest
By Cormac Sheridan | BioWorld International | Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Ablynx NV, of Ghent, Belgium, will make an oral and poster presentation for arthritis candidate, ALX-0061, at the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology in Madrid, Spain, showing a strong efficacy and safety profile for the drug in a Phase II study. Pooled data at 24 weeks of treatment demonstrated that ALX-0061 led to an improvement of 84 percent in ACR20 and 58 percent DAS28 remission. At all doses, the drug was well tolerated with no clinically relevant neutropenia, no clinically
LONDON – The ongoing row over clinical trials data transparency in Europe has polarized yet further, with a threat from scientist campaigners to publish results from previously confidential documents if companies do not pledge to make results of unpublished studies available in the next year, by submitting them to peer-reviewed journals. The campaign launched in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) as Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) moved amendments to increase data transparency
By Nuala Moran | BioWorld International | Wednesday, June 19, 2013
When Trevor Baglin, a hematologist at Addenbrooke's Hospital at Cambridge University had a head injury patient with a much-better-than-expected outcome, he did something unusual. He got very curious. Physicians had found in the patient a degree of anticoagulation consistent with severe hemophilia, and yet the bleeding stopped normally. Rather than writing it off as good luck, Baglin teamed up with Jim Huntington, of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, to design a synthetic version of
By Catherine Shaffer | BioWorld International | Wednesday, June 19, 2013
SHANGHAI, China – A licensing agreement may help troubled Israeli firm Biolinerx Ltd. get a toehold in China with its hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment BL-8030. In a deal worth as much as $30 million in initial and milestone payments, Biolinerx, of Jerusalem, entered an agreement for the development, manufacture and commercialization of BL-8030 with liver therapy specialist Jiangsu Chia-tai Tianqing Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (CTTQ), of Jiangsu, China. CTTQ is a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Sino
By Shannon Ellis | BioWorld International | Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Valneva SE priced its previously flagged and fully underwritten €40 million (US$53.3 million) rights issue at €2.65 per share, a steep discount on the company's prevailing share price of €4.61 immediately prior to the final pricing decision. The move will give the Lyon, France-based company enough fuel to achieve its main strategic objective, to become financially self-sustaining by 2015. The strategy also depends on the company rolling over an existing €20 million debt facility to an
By Cormac Sheridan | BioWorld International | Wednesday, June 19, 2013
LONDON – "I really hope to create a building where as you walk round the corridors, at the coffee machine and in the cafeteria, that you hear people talking science, that science becomes the language of the place." That is the vision Menelas Pangalos, executive vice president of innovative medicines at Astrazeneca plc, outlined as he discussed the announcement that the company's new £330 million (US$514 million) global R&D center and corporate headquarters is to be built on the Cambridge
By Nuala Moran | BioWorld International | Wednesday, June 19, 2013
LONDON – South Korean biotech Kael-Gemvax is planning further investment and new clinical trials of GV1001, despite the cancer vaccine failing to meet the primary endpoint in a 1,062-patient UK Phase III trial that reported earlier this month. There was no significant difference in overall survival between two groups receiving the vaccine in addition to chemotherapy and the control group receiving chemotherapy alone in the Telovac trial in advanced pancreatic cancer. That was the second Phase
By Nuala Moran | BioWorld International | Wednesday, June 19, 2013
SHANGHAI – Beigene Co. Ltd. has licensed a second-generation BRAF inhibitor as a promising preclinical oncology drug to Merck KGaA, of Darmstadt, Germany, for the treatment of melanoma, colorectal cancer and other cancers. It marks what may be only the second instance of a Chinese company licensing a novel molecule to a multinational pharma firm. The first was the deal with AstraZeneca plc for Shanghai-based Hutchison MediPharma Ltd.'s c-Met inhibitor candidate volitinib (HMPL-504) in 2011
By Larry Schuster | BioWorld International | Wednesday, June 12, 2013
TAIPEI, Taiwan – It's been a long wait, but Taiwan's drug development industry might just be coming of age. While the island nation is still awaiting its first home-grown innovator drug, a number of companies are almost there. As evidence, market capitalization of companies in the sector has skyrocketed at an astounding rate over the past few years, jumping from $3 billion in 2009 to $15 billion in 2013, according to Taiwan's Bio Industry Organization. It's about time, since at least the mid
By Dave Silver | BioWorld International | Wednesday, June 12, 2013
LONDON – Autifony Therapeutics Ltd. has started Phase I development of AUT00063, its treatment for age-related hearing loss and tinnitus, and raised a further £5.5 million (US$8.5 million) to take that lead program through to clinical proof of concept. £5 million of the new money comes from Pfizer Venture Investments, the VC arm of Pfizer Inc., with the remainder coming from International Biotechnology Trust plc. The funding is an extension to the Series A round and brings the amount raised by
By Nuala Moran | BioWorld International | Wednesday, June 12, 2013
LONDON – A £9.3 million (US$14.43 million) publicly funded ubiquitin research program has overcome difficulties in drugging those key protein recycling targets, leading to the formation of UB Pharma Ltd., which has now set out to raise £4 million to £6 million to take the lead candidates through to the clinic. The new company is in the final stages of agreeing to exclusive licenses for all the intellectual property generated in the four-year program, which was funded by Scotland's technology
By Nuala Moran | BioWorld International | Wednesday, June 12, 2013
DUBLIN, Ireland – Royalty Pharma's bitter and protracted takeover battle for Elan Corp. plc will, one way or another, reach a climax next Monday when Elan shareholders vote on the company's recent M&A deals. Acceptance of those transactions, which requires a vote representing 50 percent of Elan's equity plus one share, would scupper Royalty's takeover bid. Rejection would signal the end of the road for Dublin, Ireland-based Elan, a company that has, over the years, taken its shareholders
By Cormac Sheridan | BioWorld International | Wednesday, June 12, 2013
LONDON – The identification of the exact molecule on the insides of blood vessels to which malaria parasites stick will allow an immediate start on work to develop vaccines and new therapies for severe forms of malaria, the scientists who made the discovery predicted. Research published in Nature showed that the malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, binds to a human protein that plays a key role in regulating blood clotting and the response to inflammation. Thomas Lavstsen, assistant
By Sharon Kingman | BioWorld International | Wednesday, June 12, 2013
SHANGHAI, China – While the presidents from the U.S. and China have met in a summit to address human rights and cyber-attack issues, it's become clear that U.S. biopharmaceutical firms have not been immune to targeted hacking out of China. These efforts may have yielded valuable data from clinical trials or drug registration applications. Since the earliest identified cases in 2008, there has been a visible uptick in the number of hacking incidents involving biotech firms, according to Mandiant
By Shannon Ellis | BioWorld International | Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Andromeda Biotech Ltd., of Yavne, Israel, reported findings from an extension study of its Phase III trial of DiaPep277 in Type I diabetes. The open-label, 24-month extension study was designed to evaluate long-term safety, tolerability and efficacy for two years following the completion of the Phase III study, DIA-AID 1 in November 2011. Forty-three patients who completed two years in the DIA-AID 1 study and who had residual beta cell function (stimulated C-peptide over 0.2 nmol/L) were
3SBio Inc., of Shenyang, China, said it completed its merger with Decade Sunshine Ltd., an exempted company with limited liability incorporated under the laws of the Cayman Islands. The firm also requested that trading of its American depositary shares on Nasdaq be suspended, while it works to delist its registered securities. Addex Therapeutics SA, of Geneva, completed a previously announced restructuring, and Bharatt Chowrir stepped down effectively immediately as CEO and as director of
LONDON – A new study has given hope that it may one day be possible to develop a specific treatment for neuroblastoma, which is a rare type of childhood cancer. Researchers in Sweden have shown that blocking the function of a molecule that is overexpressed in neuroblastoma cells can shrink tumors and prolong survival in a mouse model of that disease. A similar strategy may also work for many other cancers, the scientists suggested, because the molecule that is overexpressed in neuroblastoma is
By Sharon Kingman | BioWorld International | Wednesday, June 5, 2013
German biotech received a badly needed boost this week with the news that GlaxoSmithKline plc was in-licensing MOR103, an antibody in clinical development in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and multiple sclerosis (MS) at veteran antibody developer Morphosys AG, in return for an up-front payment of €22.5 million (US$29 million), plus another potential €423 million in milestones linked to its progress through clinical development, regulatory approval and sales. Martinsried, Germany-based Morphosys also
By Cormac Sheridan | BioWorld International | Wednesday, June 5, 2013
LONDON – Scientists have teased out a molecular mechanism that allows synapses to respond as quickly or as slowly as required for all neurological functions ranging from simple movements to cognitive function. The finding provides a key to how neurons can provide a constant stockpile of neurotransmitter-filled synaptic vesicles, ready to be released at the synapse when needed. Nils Brose, director of the department of molecular neurobiology at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine