SAN FRANCISCO -- Realizing that microbes must be subsisting on something while they line mucus membranes, waiting to gain entry to the cells they infect, MicroCarb Inc. founder Howard Krivan set out to find what nourishes them and how they enter cells. Krivan, chief scientific officer of the Gaithersburg, Md., company (NASDAQ:CARB), told attendees at the Glycotechnology Conference here this week that mucus fractionation studies showed Salmonella were using the small, acidic compound
Genetics Institute Inc. (GI) and Yamanouchi Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd. announced Wednesday that they have formed GI- Yamanouchi European Partnership to commercialize bone growth products in Europe. This is the latest extension of the original partnership agreement between the two companies, reached in 1990, to fund the development of GI's bone growth factors, bone morphogenic proteins (BMPs) worldwide. GI licensed worldwide marketing rights to BMPs to the partnership. Also in 1990, GI (NASDAQ
Cyanotech Corp. (NASDAQ:CYAN) of Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, announced that it has sold 560,000 shares of its restricted common stock to a private investor for $560,000 cash. Cyanotech applied $525,000 of the net proceeds to repaying two loans from the state of Hawaii's Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism. The remainder will be used for working capital. (c) 1997 American Health Consultants. All rights reserved.
ChemTrak Inc. said that it has licensed worldwide, non- exclusive rights to technology from nine Syva Co. patents in exchange for a licensing fee and future royalties. The patents cover technology related to development of assays using solid support chemistry, which permits development of self-contained test products, according to ChemTrak (NASDAQ:CMTR) of Sunnyvale, Calif. The current agreement amends an earlier licensing agreement under which Syva, the diagnostic subsidiary of Syntex Corp
The need to increase drug absorption caught the eye of drug delivery researcher Dean Hsieh, who said he intuitively believed a safe enhancement could be found. While on the faculty at the pharmaceutical department of Rutgers University, Hsieh hit upon a class of substances whose isolation in the 1920s earned the 1939 Nobel Prize in chemistry for Leopold Ruzicka. These macrocyclic compounds, large rings of nine to 15 carbons, had not been expected to exist. But they later were used in foods and
Founded on Baylor College of Medicine patent applications and fueled by $8.5 million in financing led by venture capitalist David Blech, GeneMedicine Inc. is banking on a new gene transfer approach. The Houston company intends to treat general medical needs, such as muscle wasting in cancer, AIDS and heart disease, by injecting therapeutic genes in synthetic vectors targeted to specific tissues, co-founder Fred Ledley, a physician on faculty at Baylor, told BioWorld. Ledley is also vice
Gen-Probe Inc., a company dedicated to using DNA probes as the technological basis for its diagnostic assays, has sued MicroProbe Corp., another DNA probe diagnostic company, for infringing its patent on probe technology. On Monday, Gen-Probe (which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Japanese company Chugai Pharmaceutical) filed a patent infringement suit in the U.S. District Court in San Diego against MicroProbe of Garden Grove, Calif., and Bothell, Wash., charging MicroProbe with infringing
ATLANTA, Ga. -- A one-hour antibody test to diagnose active tuberculosis has passed its own clinical efficacy test on 719 suspected patients at medical centers in four countries. DynaGen Inc. is announcing results of the trials here today at the 1993 annual meeting of the American Society of Microbiology. The company's product manager for diagnostics, microbiologist Saraswathy V. Nochur, is presenting the data in a poster session, and will discuss results later today at a conference- organized
Hemosol said that it began initial production of its first blood substitute product last week at its plant in Etobicoke, Ontario. Production began following the first stage of expansion of the facilities, which includes additional containment and clean rooms, increased production areas and the installation of equipment and utilities for higher-volume production, the company said. Hemosol of Toronto said it expects to file an investigational new drug application with the U.S. FDA and a
North American Vaccine Inc. said that assay analyses demonstrated "excellent" responses for each of the components in the company's combined vaccines for preventing diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio and meningitis The Beltsville, Md., company is presenting the results at the 1993 General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Atlanta. North American tested its HIB vaccine (a capsular polysaccharide covalently coupled to tetanus toxoid protein carrier by reductive amination
Immunomedics Inc. is expected to present results of its lymphoma imaging and radioimmunotherapy programs today at the American Association for Cancer Research conference. "It's exciting," said Chairman David Goldenberg, "because for the first time we're getting the opportunity to see treatment responses at radiation doses much lower than expected." The Morris Plans, N.J., company (NASDAQ:IMMU) has three presentations scheduled for the Orlando, Fla., meeting today. In a Phase I/II trial, the
BOSTON -- More and more mammographies are being performed in the U.S., as women's awareness of breast-cancer risk increases. That spells good news for diagnosis and therapy, but, paradoxically, bad news of sorts for research. "Because of the increased use of mammography," observed molecular oncologist Suzanne Fuqua, "we are now finding smaller and smaller lesions. And because of that," she told BioWorld, "researchers such as myself are faced with the problem of finding technologies amenable to
Cell Therapeutics Inc. (CTI), a privately held Seattle biotechnology company, announced today that it will initiate four multicenter Phase I clinical trials on its drug therapy ProTec (CT-1501R) for limiting the toxic side effects of cancer treatments, including radiation, chemotherapy and interleukin- 2 (IL-2) therapy. The trials will focus on patients undergoing bone marrow transplants from genetically related donors for treating advanced blood cell cancers, patients receiving bone marrow
Preliminary Phase I/II clinical trial data on Matrix Pharmaceutical Inc.'s injectable therapeutic implant for treating prostate cancer were reported Sunday at the American Urological Association Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas. The goal is to provide a non-surgical alternative to treating cancers with chemotherapeutic agents by exposing the tissue to a local sustained dose of the drug. Perinchery Narayan of the University of California San Francisco, one of the trial's principal
Data from the completed Phase I clinical safety trial of ImmunoGen Inc.'s Oncolysin S immunoconjugate for treating small cell lung cancer were presented Monday at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Orlando, Fla. The 21 patients in the trial had relapsed with small cell lung cancer (SCLC), a malignancy that is particularly vicious. Even after chemotherapy, patients almost always relapse within 12- 18 months. Less than 5 percent of the 40,000-50,000 patients
WASHINGTON -- Most industry observers on Monday said it is too early to respond to a New York Times report that the Clinton administration is planning to create a special board to review drug prices. The Times also reported that Clinton is backing away from drug price controls. One administration source who watches biotechnology called the report "way too hypothetical to get all worked up about," and Eric Christiansen, communications director for the Biotechnology Industry Organization, said
A French drug banned in the U.S. offers a chemical end-run around the running battle between pro- and anti-abortion Americans. RU486 is a progesterone-blocker that can prevent a freshly fertilized egg from nesting in the uterus, and so terminate a pregnancy before embryonic life begins. Last January, the Clinton administration lifted a corner of the Bush ban on RU486 by permitting its importation for research purposes, presumably prior to allowing its use as an early- stage alternative to
Plotting cancer therapy in a customized fashion developed by AntiCancer Inc. is the subject of a presentation scheduled today at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Orlando, Fla. Patients with gastrointestinal cancer had their tumors cultured and tested in a system that preserves tissue structure and should maintain in vivo drug responsiveness. The in vitro assay had a 93 percent correlation with the patients' actual drug response in a collaborative trial at the Keio
Bio-Technology General Corp. (BTGC) announced this week at the 18th Annual Alex. Brown & Sons Health Care Seminar in Baltimore that it expects five of the products in its pipeline to be on the market in the next two to three years. These include human growth hormone, oxandralone, hepatitis B vaccine, sublingual testosterone and porcine growth hormone. Two of those -- oxandralone and testosterone -- are being developed by Gynex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:GYNX), the Vernon Hills, Ill., company
Total hip replacement is a bloody business. Orthopedic surgeons worry that somewhere in the many transfusions patients require may lurk a contaminating HIV or hepatitis virus. Recombinant erythropoietin (EPO) looks like a sanguine answer to their anxiety. Saturday's Lancet reported a large-scale Canadian clinical trial, under the title "Effectiveness of perioperative recombinant human erythropoietin in elective hip replacement." Two hundred and eight evenly matched patients took part in the
SAN FRANCISCO -- Realizing that microbes must be subsisting on something while they line mucus membranes, waiting to gain entry to the cells they infect, MicroCarb Inc. founder Howard Krivan set out to find what nourishes them and how they enter cells. Krivan, chief scientific officer of the Gaithersburg, Md., company (NASDAQ:CARB), told attendees at the Glycotechnology Conference here this week that mucus fractionation studies showed Salmonella were using the small, acidic compound