BioWorld Today Staff Writer As the number of infections and deaths continue to rise - and for the first time in four decades - the World Health Organization has declared a pandemic influenza outbreak of an entirely new virus: swine (H1N1) influenza. "The world is now at the start of the 2009 pandemic," said Margaret Chan, WHO director general, during a press conference Thursday. "We are in the earlier phase of the pandemic. The virus is spreading. No previous pandemic has been detected so

BioWorld Perspectives Contributing Writer Who is responsible for drug safety? Should a pharmaceutical company have to empty its deep pockets when the FDA has approved the use of its drug in a certain manner clearly labeled on the packaging, but a clinician fails to heed the warnings? Are clinicians reading the instructions on the packaging, and how can that be ascertained? Should jury opinions have more weight than FDA opinions? And who really gains and loses when a drug company gets sued? All

BioWorld Today Staff Writer BIO, ASCO, DDW, ADA ... whew! Time to wipe that conference sweat off your brow, sanitize your hands, and get ready for summer. So go ahead, set aside that scientific journal and pick up a good book. Need a little inspiration? Check out BioWorld's third annual biotech summer reading list. Once again, we've polled industry bibliophiles for recommendations to satisfy your business and pleasure needs. Yes, we know you've got Internet on the plane now, but take a break

BioWorld Today Columnist Editor's note: This week's column is a special reprint from BioWorld Today. To make sure you receive all columns by Karl Thiel, subscribe to BioWorld Today or sign up for a free trial for 30 days. You'll also get access to our archives and the BioWorld Industry Snapshots database. If you stick around this industry long enough, it's hard to avoid forming some pretty firm opinions about how things work. Of course, it never pays to get too blinkered in one's thinking

BioWorld Today Washington Editor WASHINGTON — Unless the prevalence of diabetes and the costs associated with the disease, which now exceed $218 billion per year in the U.S., are given more attention, such as including diabetes-related legislation as part of health reform, the disease will continue on its out-of-control trajectory, said Larry Hausner, CEO of the American Diabetes Association, whose annual scientific meeting got under way today in New Orleans. About 230,000 Americans each year

BioWorld Today Assistant Managing Editor Proximagen Neuroscience plc is aiming to raise 50 million (US$80 million) through the placement of 35.7 million shares, in what the firm said is one of the largest UK biotech financings in the past decade. On top of that, the London-based company said it is placing the shares at a price of 140 pence each, representing only a small 2 percent discount to its Thursday closing bid price of 142.5 pence. It's an impressive financing by any account, but

BioWorld Today Science Editor With the U.S. population now obese, overweight and normal weight at nearly equal proportions, obesity is a large market in more ways than one. At this week's meeting of the American Diabetes Association in New Orleans, several companies presented interim data on obesity drugs already in clinical trials, while a paper in the June 2009 issue of Cell Metabolism reported on a potential new target that could be harnessed to treat obesity. In the experiments reported in

BioWorld Today Staff Writer MDRNA Inc. is making good on its plan to maximize its shelved nasal programs, with the FDA's approval of a generic nasal spray for osteoporosis that has been launched by Par Pharmaceutical Cos. Inc. The news cheered Wall Street, with MDRNA's shares climbing 75 percent. Bothell, Wash.-based MDRNA, formerly Nastech Pharmaceutical Co., has stopped all development of its intranasal products and is looking to license out the shelved programs as it transitions to an RNAi

BioWorld Perspectives Contributing Writer Editor's note: Mike Williams is an adjunct professor in the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University in Chicago, from where he shares his personal views on today's drug discovery industry. The Industrial Revolution — BioStyle In the early 1990s, industrial buildings equipped with huge arrays of gene sequencers were almost indistinguishable from reproductions of the cotton mills of Britain's industrial revolution. Inside these factories

BioWorld Perspectives Contributing Writer Editor's note: Jim Stoppert is the CEO of Segetis Inc. Like pharmaceutical biotechnology, industrial biotechnology has the power to create products and solutions that cannot be produced through other routes. Industrial biotechnology also offers the opportunity to use huge volumes of renewable feedstocks in processes that are inherently safe for not only for the environment, but also for the end users. For this reason, it shows great promise in helping

BioWorld Perspectives is a free, weekly e-zine that offers unique viewpoints on developments within the biotechnology industry. Although published by the editors of BioWorld Today, the opinions expressed in BioWorld Perspectives do not reflect those of BioWorld Today or its editors. The approach taken with BioWorld Perspectives is to provide you with a fresh outlook on topics that you can't find elsewhere. You'll be able to read a variety of opinions and shared insight on the companies, trends

BioWorld Today Science Editor This week's announcement that researchers have created the first transgenic primate with an altered germline does not change the fact that the mouse is the premier go-to species for biomedical research. Two new papers this week contribute to that status –- ironically, in part by showing new differences between the human and mouse genomes. The first paper, which appears in the May 2009 issue of PLoS Biology, reports the finished genome sequence of the mouse strain

Washington Editor WASHINGTON — Top drug regulators said last week it was unlikely the FDA would quickly implement requirements for makers of long-acting and extended-release opioids to have restrictive programs in place for their products. The FDA in February told manufacturers of long-acting and extended-release formulations of fentanyl, hydromorphone, methadone, morphine, oxycodone and oxymorphone that their drugs would be required to have risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) plans

Bioworld Today Staff Writer Celldex Therapeutics Inc. took another step toward expanding its pipeline, agreeing to buy CuraGen Corp. in a $94.5 million stock deal that will bring in 11 drug candidates and some added cash. Anthony Marucci, president and CEO of Celldex, told BioWorld Today that the deal fulfills a major initiative of the company to identify and bring in synergistic products. He noted that CuraGen's portfolio of 11 antibodies is fully owned by CuraGen, and no milestone or royalty

BioWorld Today Staff Writer Cancer vaccines are back in fashion, thanks to Dendreon Corp.'s recent Phase III success with Provenge (sipuleucel-T) in prostate cancer, and encouraging data presented this weekend at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting sent shares of several other cancer vaccine players skyrocketing. Antigenics Inc. garnered plenty of attention from analysts and doctors with a presentation showing that kidney cancer vaccine Oncophage (vitespen) reduced the

BioWorld Perspectives Contributing Writer Editor's note: Michael Windelspecht is the general biology coordinator at Appalachian State University and a freelance writer for Ricochet Creative Productions LLC. This has not been a good year for higher education. Economic downturns traditionally benefit the educational community by providing a surge of displaced workers to fill the classrooms, but the severity of the current economic situation actually has had a negative effect on campuses across

Episode 24: Is the Fat Lady Singing? If you missed previous episodes of the biotech-themed soap opera "All My Clones," click here to read the beginning of the story. The last Cappuccino Pharmaceuticals board meeting came to a standstill after Dr. Skamar Tiste was fired for suggesting a stem cell project involving ... apple stems. Perhaps this meeting will be just as entertaining, mused CEO Rupert Madasheck. Perhaps this meeting will actually be productive, mused the board chair Betty

BioWorld Today Staff Writer A new era for stem cell research could lie ahead in the U.S., thanks to President Barack Obama's lifting of the ban on stem cell research and the subsequent FDA decision allowing Geron Corp. to begin the first embryonic stem cell-based clinical trial in the U.S. But that good news may have to be taken with a large grain of salt. Instead of a talk on cell fate in stem cells, one talk at the BIO International Convention in Atlanta last week focused more on the fate of

BioWorld Today Washington Editor WASHINGTON – The secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Friday said she is directing $1 billion in already budgeted funds to be used for clinical studies and commercial-scale production of vaccine antigen and adjuvants that could be used against the 2009 H1N1 swine-origin influenza A virus. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said HHS would place new orders under existing contracts with manufacturers that hold licenses in the U.S. for flu vaccines. "Our goal