R&D Trends

PPD, GA2LEN form strategic alliance in allergic diseases

Monday, September 17, 2012 10:38 AM

Pharmaceutical Product Development (PPD), a global CRO, and the Global Allergy and Asthma European Network (GA²LEN), a multidisciplinary research network, have formed a strategic alliance in which GA²LEN will provide PPD access to the network's allergy and asthma experts and to more than 100 allergy and asthma sites in Europe.

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Oncodesign, Sanofi ink research collaboration and license agreement

Friday, September 14, 2012 11:57 AM

Oncodesign, a French drug discovery company and oncology pharmacology service provider, has entered into a strategic research collaboration with global healthcare company Sanofi to apply Oncodesign's Nanocyclix technology to Sanofi kinase target programs.

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StemCells awarded $20M from CIRM for Alzheimer's program

Wednesday, September 12, 2012 10:52 AM

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), which awards grants and loans for stem cell research, has approved an award to StemCells, a cell-based therapeutics company based in Newark, Calif., for up to $20 million under CIRM's Disease Team Therapy Development Award program (RFA 10-05).

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Sweden to invest $320 million in life sciences

Wednesday, September 12, 2012 10:41 AM

A delegation of four ministers from the Swedish government, led by the Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, confirmed the country's largest ever investment in life sciences as a key element of the ruling coalition's autumn budget and research and innovation bill.

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AstraZeneca, Broad Institute partner on discovery of antibacterial and antiviral agents

Wednesday, September 12, 2012 09:09 AM

AstraZeneca and the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Mass., have formed a collaboration to identify new chemical compounds targeting bacterial and viral infections that could speed the development of new antibacterial and antiviral drugs.

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Faster approval: oncology drugs in the U.S., non-oncology drugs in the E.U.

Friday, September 7, 2012 10:45 AM

Approval times for new oncology drugs in the U.S. during the last decade were shorter than approval times for non-oncology products, while the reverse was the case in the E.U., according to a study recently completed by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development.

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Galapagos subsidiary BioFocus collaborates with Ono on CNS drug discovery

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 12:46 PM

Galapagos’ service division BioFocus and Ono Pharmaceutical have signed a new collaboration agreement focused on discovering novel drugs for CNS disorders. BioFocus will use its drug discovery platform to deliver leads and clinical candidates.

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Merck Serono spin-off Quartz Bio to offer biomarker data analysis

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 12:41 PM

Merck Serono, a division of Merck, has created Quartz Bio, the second spin-off company resulting from its Entrepreneur Partnership Program launched in April. Quartz Bio will offer biomarker data management and exploratory biomarker analysis services to the pharmaceutical industry. Biomarker analysis is a critical step in the drug development process, as it enables the identification of patient profiles most responsive to a given treatment.

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Assay Depot, Genspace team up for Open Science Challenge

Tuesday, September 4, 2012 12:32 PM

Assay Depot of San Diego and New York-based Genspace have launched the Tri-State Open Science Challenge, a science competition open to citizen scientists and bioartists who want to translate their ideas into reality. Three projects will receive $5,000 in research funding and a one-year membership to Genspace, a community biotechnology laboratory in Brooklyn, NY. One under-18 project will receive $1,000 in research funding.

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Leukemia & Lymphoma Society awards $12M in grants for blood cancer

Thursday, August 30, 2012 11:54 AM

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) of White Plains, N.Y., has awarded 20 grants representing a total investment of $12 million to tackle four areas of high unmet medical need in the blood cancers.

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