Novartis Cell & Gene Therapies Unit to close, but it’s not the end for CAR T research

Novartis plans to disband its high-pro­file cell and gene therapy unit, which was responsible for advancing one of the leading chimeric antigen receptor T cell, or CAR T, therapies for cancer treatment in the pipeline today. The company said it remains strongly committed to ongoing development of its CAR T technologies.

Medidata, SHYFT Analytics partner to improve patient recruitment with healthcare data

Improving patient recruitment and study design have long been the goals of many life sciences firms and CROs. Last week, Medidata and SHYFT Analytics signaled their intention to address these concerns by announcing a partner­ship to create a system that would combine data from electronic medical records (EMRs), health claims and data typically gathered in clinical trials. According to Medidata’s Chief Operating Officer, Mike Capone, this approach would give clients a more complete picture of patient populations and “support efforts to design and execute more effective studies and more efficiently recruit patients for clinical trials.”

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