Company (Location) Company (Location) Value (M) Type/Product Area Terms/Details Date APRIL Actavis Inc. (Parsippany, N.J.) Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. (Aliso Viejo, Calif.) ND Agreement for Actavis to be the exclusive marketer and distributor of an authorized generic of Valeant's Zovirax ointment Terms were not disclosed 4/8/13 Bial SA (S. Mamede do Coronado, Portugal) Ono Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (Osaka, Japan) ND Exclusive license agreement for the development and
Mirna Therapeutics Inc. announced last week that it has initiated a Phase I trial of MRX34, its microRNA (miRNA) mimic. Andreas Bader, director of research at Mirna, told BioWorld Insight the company believes it's the first miRNA mimic to enter the clinic. Strictly speaking, it's not the first drug in the clinic involving a miRNA. That distinction belongs to Santaris Pharma A/S, which has been in the clinic since 2008 with miravirsen (SPC3649), its inhibitor of miR-122, a liver specific miRNA
By Brian Orelli | BioWorld Insight | Monday, May 20, 2013
"Provided that these experiments are reproducible in the hands of others, the findings offer the potential to accelerate progress toward the development [of these cells] to treat a range of degenerative diseases." – Mary Herbert, professor of reproductive biology at Newcastle University, on the success in cloning human embryonic stem cells from skin cells via somatic cell nuclear transfer "After going over there and seeing how the landscape was changing, it seemed like there was a growing
Amending an oversight in the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, the House voted 416-6 to set a deadline for the SEC to implement Regulation A changes. The National Institutes of Health's Office of Biotechnology Activities is proposing a revision to its guidelines for research involving recombinant or synthetic nucleic acid molecules. Under the proposal, as long as an initial human study of certain human gene transfers is approved by a registered institutional biosafety committee (IBC
Last week, researchers from Oregon Health & Science University reported that they had created embryonic stem cells via somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), with a high enough efficiency to bring the creation of patient-specific embryonic stem cell lines into the realm of the possible. Successful medicine, though, takes more than scientific progress. And embryonic stem cells have always been the poster child for that fact. The scientific challenges are formidable in their own right. The hope of
By Anette Breindl | BioWorld Insight | Monday, May 20, 2013
Why PARP Inhibitors Kill BRCA Mutants Inhibitors of the enzyme poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) selectively kill cells with BRCA mutations, and researchers at the University of Michigan have discovered one reason that they do so. In their studies, the authors showed that poly(ADP-ribose) (PAR) recruits BRCA1, in complex with the protein BARD1, to sites of DNA damage. When PAR polymerization is inhibited, such binding cannot occur, and BRCA1 cannot be recruited to repair DNA damage. Many BRCA1
Through the indirect targeting of toll-like receptors via their co-receptor, researchers have boosted the immune response to infection, and helped animals with experimentally induced sepsis fight off the bacteria that set off the septic response. Given that one effect of sepsis is massive hyperinflammation, the notion of helping sepsis patients by boosting their innate immune response might seem counterintuitive at best, or like the punch line of a bad mother-in-law joke, at worst. But the
By Anette Breindl | BioWorld Today | Monday, May 20, 2013
As sales of Incyte Corp.'s approved JAK inhibitor Jakafi (ruxolitinib) begin to pick up steam, a competing myelofibrosis candidate from Sanofi SA moved a step closer to market. The Paris-based big pharma, which gained rights to JAK drug SAR302503 in its 2010 buyout of TargeGen Inc., reported solid top-line data from the Phase III study dubbed JAKARTA, showing that both dose groups of the drug hit the primary endpoint of reducing spleen volume. The study was conducted under a special protocol
By Jennifer Boggs | BioWorld Today | Monday, May 20, 2013
UCB SA, of Brussels, Belgium, said data from a double-blind, placebo-controlled study found that Neupro (rotigotine transdermal system) reduced total nocturnal systolic blood pressure (NSBP) elevations associated with periodic limb movements during sleep (PLMS) and total PLMS in patients with idiopathic moderate to severe restless legs syndrome (RLS)/Willis-Ekbom disease. The data were presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hypertension. Results showed that rotigotine
Cellular Biomedicine Group Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., achieved 50 percent enrollment of the total projected enrollment required for its Phase I trial to evaluate the safety and preliminary efficacy of human adipose-derived mesenchymal progenitor cells therapy for knee osteoarthritis. No severe adverse effects have been reported so far. Cytos Biotechnology AG, of Zurich, Switzerland, and Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) said the first healthy volunteer has been
