R&D Trends

BIND, Amgen ink agreement for development of a kinase inhibitor nanomedicine

Wednesday, January 9, 2013 10:13 AM

BIND Biosciences, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of highly selective targeted and programmable therapeutics called Accurins, has entered into a global collaboration agreement with Amgen, a biotech based in Thousand Oaks, Calif., to develop and commercialize a kinase inhibitor nanomedicine for treating a range of solid tumors.

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Tufts says drug developers need to more fully identify, address root causes of R&D inefficiency

Wednesday, January 9, 2013 09:16 AM

While patent expirations on many top selling medicines is spurring the research-based drug industry to embrace new development paradigms to replenish sparse R&D pipelines, drug developers need to more fully identify and address root causes of R&D inefficiency, according to the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development.

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Cellular Dynamics, AstraZeneca partner on use of iPSC-derived human cells in drug discovery

Monday, January 7, 2013 02:16 PM

Cellular Dynamics International (CDI), a developer of next-generation stem cell technologies, signed a Center of Excellence agreement with global biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to accelerate the pace of drug discovery through the use of human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines and tissue cells.

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MacroGenics, Gilead Sciences to develop four DART products

Monday, January 7, 2013 01:47 PM

MacroGenics, a privately held biotechnology company that develops next generation antibody therapeutics, has entered into a license agreement with Gilead Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company focused on unmet medical needs, for the development and commercialization of Dual-Affinity Re-Targeting (DART) products directed at up to four undisclosed targets.

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PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative and Inovio to accelerate development of malaria vaccines

Monday, January 7, 2013 12:22 PM

The PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI), a global program established by international nonprofit organization PATH, and Inovio Pharmaceuticals, a vaccine developer, have agreed to a follow-on collaboration to advance malaria vaccine development and new vaccination delivery technologies.

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ethris, Shire form research-based alliance on SNIM modified RNA

Monday, January 7, 2013 09:57 AM

Shire, a global specialty biopharmaceutical company, and ethris, a young biopharmaceutical company based in Germany, have initiated a research based alliance focused on the development and commercialization of novel RNA-based therapeutics.

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Gradalis closes $24M Series B financing to advance FANG personalized cancer vaccine

Friday, January 4, 2013 12:26 PM

Gradalis, a privately-held, fully-integrated biotech based in Dallas, Texas, has closed a $24 million Series B round of financing.

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Repligen, Pfizer form licensing agreement for spinal muscular atrophy program

Friday, January 4, 2013 11:29 AM

Repligen, a life sciences company based in Waltham, Mass., has entered into an exclusive worldwide licensing agreement with global pharmaceutical company Pfizer to advance Repligen's spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) program, originally in-licensed from Families of SMA (FSMA).

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Merck, GE Healthcare collaborate on imaging biomarkers for BACE inhibitor program

Wednesday, December 19, 2012 01:18 PM

Merck and GE Healthcare have formed a clinical study collaboration, license and supply agreement for use of [18F]Flutemetamol, an investigational positron emission tomography (PET) imaging agent, to support Merck's development of MK-8931, a novel oral beta amyloid precursor protein site cleaving enzyme (BACE) inhibitor and Merck's lead investigational candidate for Alzheimer's disease (AD).

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Oncodesign, KU Leuven, Ipsen collaborate on advancing drug discovery in Parkinson's disease

Wednesday, December 19, 2012 11:11 AM

Oncodesign, a biotech based in France, and the Laboratory for Neurobiology and Gene Therapy (LNGT) at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, have entered into a research collaboration to evaluate, along with a global specialty-driven pharmaceutical company Ipsen, Oncodesign’s compounds in multiple pharmacology models for Parkinson's disease.

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