LONDON - A gene responsible for the development of pre-eclampsia, a condition affecting many pregnant women and their unborn children, will be identified soon, and may one day lead to a drug treatment for this disease. Research led by the Icelandic company deCODE Genetics, of Reykjavik, has narrowed the search down to an area on chromosome 2. Kari Stefansson, founder and CEO of deCODE, told BioWorld International, "This is a very important step toward fully understanding this disease and being
BioWorld International | Wednesday, October 20, 1999
LONDON - "Confidence appears to be returning to the sector on both sides of the Atlantic." This is the cheery opinion of John Green-Armytage, chairman of the investment fund International Biotechnology Trust plc (IBT), commenting on the fund's annual results. "We believe that the negative market sentiment of 1997/98 has turned around, with a renewed sense of realism in place for the new millennium." In effect, IBT managed to regain the position it held going into the dip, with the share price
BioWorld International | Wednesday, October 20, 1999
LANGEN, Germany - More than 20 scientists from the U.S., Canada, and Europe discussed the development and clinical progress of DNA vaccines during a three-day conference held here at the German Federal Agency for Sera and Vaccines (Paul-Ehrlich Institute, PEI). During the conference details of the forthcoming "European Note for Guidance" on DNA vaccines were announced. "Since the first demonstration of the proof of principle of DNA vaccines in animal studies back in 1993, the field has
BioWorld International | Wednesday, October 20, 1999
LONDON - Scotia Holdings plc said it plans to expand clinical trials of its photodynamic cancer drug Foscan into four further indications following recent submissions to the FDA and EMEA for Foscan in the treatment of head and neck cancer. The new indications - pancreatic, prostate, skin (basal cell) and bone cancer - have been selected on the basis of preliminary Phase Ia trials. CEO Rob Dow told BioWorld International, "We expanded access to Foscan because of pressure from investigators. We
BioWorld International | Wednesday, October 20, 1999
HAMBURG, Germany - The patent row between Europe's two leading antibody technology companies has entered a new round after each claimed that a ruling by the European Patent Office (EPO) last week was favorable. The dispute between Cambridge Antibody Technology Group plc (CAT), of Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, UK, and MorphoSys AG, of Martinsried, Germany, relates to antibody libraries, an area of direct competition. CAT holds two main patent families, one covering antibody gene expression libraries
BioWorld International | Wednesday, October 20, 1999
Company (Symbol)* Product Description Indication Status/Date** CANCER Aeterna Laboratories (Canada; TSE:AEL) Neovastat (AE-941) Shark cartilage extract with anti-angiogenic and anti-inflammatory properties Lung cancer Presented Phase I/II trial data at the 10th European Cancer Conference in Austria (9/14) Cobra Therapeutics* (UK) GDEPT Gene directed enzyme prodrug therapy; targeted chemotherapy program in which a prodrug is converted to an active chemotherapeutic agent within a
Company (Symbol)* Product Description Indication Action/Date** CANCER Aronex Pharmaceuticals Inc. (ARNX) Atragen Liposomal formulation of all trans-retinoic acid Acute promyelocytic leukemia Received not-approvable letter (9/24) Battelle* Inhalation chemotherapy treatment with doxorubicin Lung cancer and metastatic tumors to the lungs FDA granted approval to begin Phase I trials (9/10) ImmunoGen Inc. (IMGN) huC242-DM1 Tumor-activated prodrug Colorectal and pancreatic
By Debbie Strickland Special To BioWorld Financial Watch Many biotechnology companies talk about resurrecting failed drugs in new indications, but Celgene Corp. has actually succeeded in that difficult endeavor, bringing back perhaps the century's most notorious pharmaceutical, thalidomide, while also using the compound as a springboard to building a pipeline of analogues and distant analogues with potential for treating chronic and life-threatening diseases without the risk of birth
PARIS - As part of its joint research program with the Janssen Research Foundation, an affiliate of Janssen Pharmaceutica, the Belgium-based subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, Genset has identified a novel candidate gene associated with schizophrenia and has delivered the discovery to Janssen, triggering an undisclosed milestone payment. It also has filed patent applications for the new gene. The Paris-based genomics company entered into its research collaboration with the Janssen Research
BioWorld International | Wednesday, October 13, 1999
Hamburg, Germany The German start-up company VitaResc Biotech AG, founded in March 1999 and specializing in developing biopharmaceutical products for intensive care patients, last week announced that it has received exclusive worldwide rights to develop a novel drug for the prevention and treatment of Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS). (See BioWorld International, Oct. 6, 1999.) VitaResc has been founded following an initiative of the German venture capital company Techno Venture
BioWorld International | Wednesday, October 13, 1999
LONDON - The bioinformatics company Inpharmatica Ltd. has launched the first comprehensive database of pre-calculated structure-function relationships. This brings together all the information on sequence, structure and function relationship for the half-million or so gene products in the public domain. The database, called Biopendium, currently comprises over 100 million such relationships. Mark Swindells, scientific development director, told BioWorld International, "Biopendium will be
BioWorld International | Wednesday, October 13, 1999
BRUSSELS, Belgium - EuropaBio, the European Assoc iation for Bioindustries, has moved pre-emptively on an article on genetically modified foods (GMF) due to appear in the Oct. 15 issue of The Lancet. The article returns to the studies of the Hungarian scientist Arpad Pusztai Ewen on rats fed with genetically modified potatoes. Pusztai's claims that he had discovered side effects were roundly denounced in August 1998 by his own director at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen, Scotland, and
BioWorld International | Wednesday, October 13, 1999
Cantab Pharmaceuticals plc has granted an exclusive license to Celltech Chiroscience plc to develop antibodies to Cantab's OX40 receptor for chronic inflammatory and autoimmune disorders. The financial terms were not disclosed, but Cantab has a two-year option to buy into any antibody products arising from the research. OX40 is a receptor found on the surface of activated T cells which often are found at the site of chronic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and
BioWorld International | Wednesday, October 13, 1999
BRUSSELS, Belgium - A genetically modified tomato from Zeneca has passed one of the stages toward winning approval for release on European Union markets. The European Commission announced on Oct. 11 that its Scientific Committee on Food had expressed a favorable opinion on the safety of products derived from the tomato. Zeneca had sought approval under the EU Novel Food Regulation for this tomato variety intended solely for processing. When ripe, the tomato softens less quickly than its
BioWorld International | Wednesday, October 13, 1999
SYDNEY, Australia - Brisbane-based biotechnology company, Alchemia Pty Ltd, will use a capital injection of A$5.4 million (US$3.3 million) to build a pilot plant for its new process for making complex carbohydrates and to set up a sales team. Alchemia Managing Director Tracie Ramsdale said the company was "in discussions with a number of parties" about producing a particular, unnamed carbohydrate required for the new field of xenotransplantation. Ramsdale said the company also was discussing
BioWorld International | Wednesday, October 13, 1999
HAMBURG, Germany - The German biopharmaceutical product company MediGene AG, of Martinsried near Munich, has in-licensed the drug Etomoxir to treat congestive heart failure (CHF). The new lead compound in MediGene's cardiac disease area has already finished Phase I clinical trials successfully. Using a proprietary heart EST database, MediGene has identified a couple of candidate genes responsible for the early onset of cardiomyopathies and reported the validation of a novel target involved in
BioWorld International | Wednesday, October 13, 1999
PARIS - The French company NicOx S.A., a drug development company specialized in therapeutic compounds that release nitric oxide, has launched an initial public offering on France's Nouveau Marchi. It is offering some 2.34 million shares, equivalent to 39 percent of the company's equity, at a price of 20 euros to 24 euros, which at the median price will net the company some 32.3 million euros ($34.5 million). NicOx, which is based in Sophia Antipolis, in southern France, is issuing 1,617,000
BioWorld International | Wednesday, October 13, 1999
LONDON - The prospect of a vaccine against influenza which would confer life-long protection against all strains of the virus is an exciting one. Now a new strategy, focusing on a tiny surface antigen of the influenza virus, suggests that such a vaccine may one day be possible. The variability of the two main proteins of the influenza virus - neuraminidase and hemagglutinin - is notorious. Regular small changes due to point mutations, known as antigenic drift, account for the virus's ability to
BioWorld International | Wednesday, October 13, 1999
PARIS - Chemunex S.A., the Paris-based company specialized in the development of microbiological testing products, has launched a test for the specific detection of the Escherichia coli bacterium in drinking water. Designed for use in conjunction with the Chemunex ChemScanRDI analyzer, the new test can detect the presence of a single E. coli bacterium in 100 ml of water within three hours, which, according to the company, makes it the fastest and most sensitive E. coli test on the market. When
BioWorld International | Wednesday, October 13, 1999
HAMBURG, Germany - Bayer AG, of Leverkusen, Germany, reported this week that clinical trials of its first biotech product developed in Germany have started in the U.S. The novel compound blocks the activity of the cytokine IL-4 that is involved in inflammatory processes of the bronchium in asthma patients. The research was carried out in close cooperation with Walter Sebald from the University of W|rzburg's Biocenter, and scientists from Japan, Australia, and Europe. The collaboration led to a
BioWorld International | Wednesday, October 13, 1999
LONDON - A gene responsible for the development of pre-eclampsia, a condition affecting many pregnant women and their unborn children, will be identified soon, and may one day lead to a drug treatment for this disease. Research led by the Icelandic company deCODE Genetics, of Reykjavik, has narrowed the search down to an area on chromosome 2. Kari Stefansson, founder and CEO of deCODE, told BioWorld International, "This is a very important step toward fully understanding this disease and being