LONDON – Twenty-five European Union (EU) countries are to direct national funding for research in neurodegenerative disorders into a single, 10-year joint research plan which will see work in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, among others, coordinated across Europe.

Shares in AB Science SA surged 71.5 percent last week on news that its tyrosine kinase inhibitor masitinib strongly outperformed Sutent (sunitinib malate) in a Phase II head-to-head trial in 44 patients with Gleevec-resistant gastrointestinal stromal tumors.

LONDON – The discovery of a genetic variant that is associated with a higher risk of developing a particular type of stroke could one day lead to new treatments for that condition.

LONDON – Splitting its internal research effort into dozens of small teams, with each focusing on a particular disease or pathway, is on track to solve GlaxoSmithKline plc's productivity woes and push its return on investment in R&D to 14 percent.

LONDON – The challenging indication of severe sepsis has confounded yet another attempt to develop a registered treatment, with the curtailment of the Phase II/III trial of Agennix AG's talactoferrin.

LONDON – A new method of probing the mechanisms of drug resistance in unicellular parasites has identified a tranche of genes and proteins that may make it possible to develop new treatments for hitherto difficult-to-treat infections.

Prosensa Therapeutics BV raised €23 million (US$29.9 million) in a Series C round last week to enable it to move two new exon-skipping antisense oligonucleotide drugs into clinical development in Duchenne's muscular dystrophy (DMD) and to take forward preclinical programs in two other rare disease indications.

Transgene SA is ramping up its engagement with China by establishing a wholly owned subsidiary called Transgene Biopharmaceuticals Technology (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., which will serve as a vehicle for its scientific collaboration with local academic research groups.

LONDON – For once "unprecedented" was the mot juste as the CEOs of nine pharma and biotech companies took to the stage with government health and overseas aid ministers, and the heads of agencies including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank, to back the London Declaration, pledging to control or eliminate 10 neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) by 2020.

• Circadian Technologies Ltd., of Melbourne, Australia, said preclinical data showed that VEGF-C blockade, through administration of Circadian's lead candidate VGX-100, a human antibody, significantly improved corneal graft survival in an animal model.