Immune Response Corp. announced Tuesday that it has begun Phase I/II clinical trials with a vaccine therapy to treat rheumatoid arthritis. The treatment is designed to target specific T cells responsible for the disease. Immune Response spokesman Steven Basta said he believes the company is the first to enter human trials with a therapeutic vaccine for rheumatoid arthritis. The treatment, based on Immune Response's core technology, involves the stimulation of a response against T cells, which
Dura Pharmaceuticals announced Tuesday it has launched Tornalate Inhalation Solution .02 percent (bitolterol mesylate), its first patented pharmaceutical product. Tornalate is indicated primarily for the treatment and prophylaxis of asthma. Dura's line of nebulizers can deliver solutions such as Tornalate to the lung. The company estimates that the Tornalate products give it access to a market with sales of almost $600 million in 1991 and will more than double the size of the markets served by
Two long-awaited biotechnology stock option indexes -- the AMEX Biotechnology Stock Index and the CBOE Biotech Index -- may finally be ready to make their market debuts at the end of the month, according to their sponsors. The Chicago Board of Option Exchange (CBOE) expects to file today with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) an amendment to its application for a biotechnology stock option index. The American Stock Exchange (ASE), which filed last January with the SEC to
Allelix Biopharmaceuticals Inc. of Toronto named Suman Rakhit director of medicinal chemistry. He had been director of chemistry for Bio-Mega Inc. in Montreal. Roberts Pharmaceutical Corp. of Eatontown, N.J., named Robert W. Loy chief operating officer. He had been vice president for international sales and marketing for Hollister Inc. (c) 1997 American Health Consultants. All rights reserved.
Alamar Biosciences Inc. announced Friday that it received FDA marketing approval for its gram-positive bacterial test kits for in vitro diagnosis. The test kit will determine, for up to 16 different antibiotics, which medication and what dosage will be effective in treating a gram-positve bacterial infection. According to Kenneth D. Miller, Alamar's chief executive, the test kit will complement the company's previously approved test kit for gram-negative bacterial infections. The Sacramento
A study reported Saturday in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) showed that thrombolytic therapy with SmithKline Beecham's anistreplase was most effective when the heart attack patients received therapy within two hours of the onset of symptoms. The study corroborated reports presented in April at an American College of Cardiology meeting in Dallas involving SmithKline Beecham's clot-dissolving agent anistraplase, trade name Eminase, and Genentech Inc.'s clot-buster, Activase. The two companies
Rare and exotic palms from the Fairchild Tropical Garden Center in Miami, which were devastated by Hurricane Andrew, may offer the National Cancer Institute (NCI) a valuable source of drug compound possibilities According to Michael Balick of the New York Botanical Garden, samples from 25 palms were shipped to cancer institute laboratories on Friday. The Natural Products Branch of the NCI will screen the palms for compounds to use against the AIDS virus and 60 kinds of cancer. Douglas Daley
Cholestech Corp. has received a "moderately complex" classification from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides on the Cholestech LDX cholesterol measuring Under the clinical laboratory improvement amendments of 1988 (CLIA'88), categorization of laboratory test systems is required by the HHS under one of three levels of classification: waived, moderately complex, and highly complex. According to the company, the classification
Published Aug. 5 to 26,1992. Biogen Inc. Improved Thrombin Cambridge, Mass. Inhibitors Synthesis of biologically active molecules that bind and inhibit thrombin, for therapy, prophylaxis, diagnosis. Ecogen Inc. Novel Bt Strain WO 92/13954 Langhorne, Pa. Targets Beetles Bacillus thuringiensis strain isolate attacks coleopterans, for example, Colorado potato beetle, Diabrotica, e.g., corn rootworm. Genelabs Inc. AIDS Virus Antigens WO 92/13946 Redwood City, Calif. Peptide antigens derived from
Biotechnology stock indexes ended the week down on Friday, giving up some of the modest gains they posted earlier in the week. The overall market sagged in the slowest trading day of the year prior to the beginning of the three-day Labor Day holiday. Big Board volume for the day was an estimated 124.34 million shares, down from 212.54 million the previous session. The Dow Jones industrial averages dropped 10.27 points to close at 3,281.93, finishing the week with a net gain of 14.32 points
Deprenyl Research Ltd. announced Friday that it will discontinue at the end of the year its co-marketing arrangement with its Canadian marketing partner, Purdue Fredrick, for Deprenyl's Parkinson's disease treatment, Eldepryl. Deprenyl Research of Toronto received Canadian marketing approval in April for Eldepryl as a first-line treatment for Parkinson's disease, a drug that the company anticipated would be used by 30,000 Canadian patients and which garnered sales of $11.6 million in 1991. (c
Genetic Therapy Inc. named Robert C. Riley to the new position of senior vice president for business planning and development. He was senior director of business development and planning for Bristol-Myers Squibb. (c) 1997 American Health Consultants. All rights reserved.
Receptech Corp. said late Friday that it had been notified by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) that its net worth has fallen below the $1 million minimum required for listing on NASDAQ's National Market System. Receptech (NASDAQ:RECP), which was formed by Seattle-based Immunex Inc. in 1989 to fund research and development of receptor products at Immunex, said it would seek a temporary exception to the NASD bylaws that would allow it to continue trading through next Jan. 31
Genelabs Technologies Inc. said Thursday that it signed a three-year collaboration with SmithKline Beecham to complete development of a hepatitis E vaccine. The agreement calls for SmithKline to provide more than $12 million in funding in the form of license payments, research support, milestone payments and planned equity investments in Genelabs of Redwood City, Calif. There is currently no approved vaccine against hepatitis E, a waterborne virus that is most prevalent in Asia and Africa. It
A report in today's edition of the journal Science describes how a team of 11 researchers at the University of Tokyo Medical Faculty and the Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology used genetically engineered fibroblast growth factor to limit heart damage in dogs whose coronary arteries were pinched shut. Atsuko Yanagisawa-Miwa, the principal author of the study, based the team's approach on their finding that infarcted canine myocardium contains more natural basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF
The National Science Foundation has awarded MacConnell Research of San Diego a two-year small business innovative research (SBIR) Phase II grant. The SBIR grant is intended to help the company carry out a new mapping technique on human chromosomes. The $260,000 grant for the second phase of MacConnell's research on its human genome mapping project brings to $410,000 the total amount of small business grant funds the 3- year-old company has received. MacConnell hopes its research will result
Somatogen Inc of Boulder, Colo., broke ground on Thursday for a clinical manufacturing facility that will cost as much as $45 million. The facility, which company officials estimate will create 150 jobs, will be used to expand SomatogenLs capacity to produce rHb1.1, a recombinant human hemoglobin, for use in domestic and international trials. The product, SomatogenLs first, is being developed as an alternative to blood transfusions. Once the clinical development of rHb1.1 progresses, Somatogen
Delayed treatments of Genentech Inc.'s Activase t-PA in heart attack patients significantly reduced their mortality rate, according to data from a recent international, company- sponsored study. The results of the late assessment of thrombolytic efficacy (LATE) study were presented Thursday at the 14th annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology in Barcelona, Spain. Specifically designed to determine whether treatment with the t-PA compound is useful up to 24 hours after the onset of
With a few notes of dissent, shareholders of Scios Inc. and Nova Pharmaceutical Inc. separately approved a merger of the two companies Thursday morning. The rechristened Scios Nova Inc. laid out an ambitious strategy for a leaner operation that aims to take at least a half-dozen homegrown drugs into clinical trials by 1995 and usher five others, now in clinical trials, into the market by late in the decade. The company hopes by 1997 to grab an additional $100 million in sales from acquired
Elan Corp. of Athlone, Ireland named Donal J. Geaney president and chief operating officer. He is currently chief financial officer. Geaney, along with Kenneth W.H. McVey and Seamus Mulligan, was also named to the newly created office of the chairman. McVey is executive vice president for business planning and development and Mulligan is executive vice president for pharmaceutical operations worldwide. Sepracor Inc. of Marlborough, Mass., named Gunnar Aberg vice president of research and
Immune Response Corp. announced Tuesday that it has begun Phase I/II clinical trials with a vaccine therapy to treat rheumatoid arthritis. The treatment is designed to target specific T cells responsible for the disease. Immune Response spokesman Steven Basta said he believes the company is the first to enter human trials with a therapeutic vaccine for rheumatoid arthritis. The treatment, based on Immune Response's core technology, involves the stimulation of a response against T cells, which