Drug Development - Latest News  

Kalos Therapeutics announced today that the Company and the scientific inventor of its exclusively licensed technology to develop a family of heart hormones, a new therapy for the treatment of cancer, was featured today on Good Morning America.

Company to enable turn-key strategic drug development approach to program management for one-stop drug, diagnostic and device development solutions - worldwide.

Ponsus Pharma recruits Mats Silvander, Ph.D. as Research & Development Manager and Dan Johansson, M.Sc. as Sales & Marketing Manager

A novel class of drugs composed of single strands of DNA or RNA, called aptamers, can bind protein targets with a high strength and specificity and are currently in clinical development as treatments for a broad range of common diseases

Continues Growth Despite Challenging Economy

The changing times requires bold action from pharmaceuticals, particularly independent contract drug development firms. UPM Pharmaceuticals fills this requirement.

Boston area based CRO Integral BioSystems, LLC announces its Drug Development and IP Services to the Biotech community.

Small synthetic fragments of genetic material called small interfering RNA (siRNA) can block production of abnormal proteins; however, these exciting new drug candidates can also induce a strong immune response, causing toxic side effects

GenScript backs up beta amyloid peptide resources for AD research.

GenScript expands its peptide modification service offerings.

Cliniminds www.cliniminds.com, announced today one more workshop on Introduction to GLP and GDP-A Laboratory Perspective for Regulatory Studies in New Drug Development, to be held on 29th -30th November 2008

An innovative patented Nanotechnology system has been developed by a Drug Development Company located in Israel. This technology has brought the drug development process into a completely new level.

Troubled e-clinical specialist Datatrak International (Cleveland, Ohio) could be up for sale shortly, depending on the outcome of a review of strategic options now under way.

In the latest of five acquisitions, Worldwide Clinical Trials (Beverley Hills, California) has completed the purchase of Serbian CRO MediQuest (Belgrade).

Sekisui Chemical (Tokyo, Japan) is to acquire privately held US CRO XenoTech (Lenexa, Kansas), which specialises in pre-clinical safety studies. Specific terms of the all-cash transaction have not been disclosed.

E-clinical specialist etrials Worldwide (Morrisville, North Carolina) has announced that its president and CEO, Eugene (Chip) Jennings, resigned on July 8th “for family reasons”.

Canadian CRO Algorithme Pharma (Laval, Quebec) has acquired a US clinical research centre from Bioanalytical Systems (BASi - West Lafayette, Indiana) for US$850,000 in cash.

US e-clinical specialist Datatrak International (Cleveland, Ohio) has decided to close its office in Bonn, Germany. Global help-desk services previously carried out by the office will now be provided from the company’s Cleveland headquarters.

Piribo, the online destination for business intelligence for the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, has added a new report which provides an up-to-date overview of the latest changes within the drug development sector.

Veeda Oncology (Columbus, Ohio) has acquired French cancer trials specialist Biologie et Industrie for an undisclosed sum.

Quintiles Transnational (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina) has signed an agreement to acquire Eidetics (Boston, Massachusetts), a privately held healthcare market research and consulting firm. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Biotech & pharma companies are increasingly utilizing novel technologies to assess the druggability of test compounds early in the development cycle to avoid costly late clinical-stage attrition.

Pharmaceutical services company i3 (Basking Ridge, New Jersey) has acquired Russian CRO Lege Artis (Moscow). Financial terms were not disclosed.

Mixed results for Novartis’s first-in-class direct renin inhibitor, Rasilez (aliskiren), have been reported from the ALLAY study at the American College of Cardiology meeting in Chicago, US.

Parexel International (Boston, Massachusetts) has sold its stand-alone bioanalytical laboratory in Poitiers, France, to privately owned Indian CRO Synchron Research Services (Ahmedabad, Gujarat)

Quintiles Transnational (North Carolina) has signed an agreement with Medca Japan to provide central laboratory services in Japan. Quintiles will have its own staff at the Medca Japan laboratory in Saitama, a city in the Greater Tokyo area

GTCbio just announced its holding the annual Modern Drug Discovery and Development Summit taking place on October 15-17, 2008 in San Diego, CA.

QPS (Newark, Delaware) has acquired early-phase specialist Bio-Kinetic Clinical Applications (Springfield, Missouri). Bio-Kinetic has a 240-bed Phase I facility - one of the largest in the US owned by an independent CRO.

US biotechnology company GeoVax Labs’ (Atlanta, Georgia) HIV/AIDS vaccine is expected to enter Phase IIa human trials in mid-2008.

Clinical technology specialist ClinPhone (Nottingham, UK) has rejected a preliminary approach from Parexel International regarding a possible offer for the company.

Polish CRO KCR (Warsaw) has acquired its Czech counterpart DUX Consulting (Prague). The value of the transaction was not disclosed.

Quintiles Transnational (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina) has completed a new investor partnership in which CEO Dennis Gillings and private investment firms Bain Capital and TPG Capital have become the lead investors.

GlaxoSmithKline has decided not to exercise its option to license Exelixis’s (San Francisco, California) kidney disease drug XL784 for further development and commercialisation.

US private equity firm Genstar Capital (San Francisco, California) has completed its $797 million acquisition of PRA International (Reston, Virginia).

The US Food and Drug Administration has lifted its clinical hold on Vion Pharmaceuticals’ Phase III trial of its lead anti-cancer agent, Cloretazine (VNP40101M), in combination with Ara-C (cytarabine) in relapsed acute myelogenous leukaemia (AML).

Presenters from GSK, Pfizer, Abbott, Schering-Plough, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GE, Siemens, NIH and more to speak at GTCbio’s 3rd Imaging in Drug Development conference on March 17-18, 2008 in San Diego.

Robert Copeland, VP of Biology, Oncology Center of Excellence in Drug Discovery at GlaxoSmithKline to give keynote presentation at 5th Cancer Drugs R&D conference on February 21-22, 2008 in Phoenix

Seattle Genetics (Bothell, Washington) has begun a Phase IIb clinical trial of its monoclonal antibody SGN-40 as an adjunct to second-line therapy for relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL).

eResearchTechnology (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is to acquire Covance’s (Princeton, New Jersey) centralised electrocardiographic business for up to $49.2 million.

US cancer biotechnology company AVEO Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, Massachusetts) has signed a collaborative agreement with Eli Lilly to use AVEO's Human Response Platform in a pilot project.

Private equity firm Sequoia Capital has invested Rs 1 billion ($25 million) in Indian CRO GVK Biosciences (Hyderabad). GVK BIO plans to use the funds to build a state-of-the-art campus on a 25-acre site at Hyderabad.

UK CRO Chiltern International (Slough, Berkshire) has acquired the independent US CRO Clinical Trial Management Services. Terms were not disclosed.

Indian CRO Manipal AcuNova (Bangalore) and its German counterpart ECRON (Frankfurt) have signed a definitive merger agreement. The combined company, ECRON AcuNova, will have 265 employees

Averion International has acquired Swiss CRO Hesperion from its parent company, Cerep, for €25 million ($36.2 million).

Targeted Genetics (Boston, Massachusetts) says that final tests support earlier indications that a patient death during a trial of its injectable anti-arthritis drug, tgAAC94, was not caused by the drug.

MDS Pharma Services (King of Prussia, Pennsylvania) has expanded its central lab operations in China, moving to a new, 25,000 sq ft facility near Beijing airport.

Quintiles Transnational (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina) has acquired Central American CRO Bio-Trials. The purchase was made by Quintiles’ Latin American subsidiary, based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Isotechnika (Edmonton, Canada) has received permission from the US Food and Drug Administration for the long-term use of ISA247 for the prevention of rejection in patients currently participating in its Phase IIb kidney transplant (PROMISE) trial.

The US Food and Drug Administration has sent a warning letter to Sanofi-Aventis, detailing failings in Aventis’s oversight of investigators involved in a clinical trial of the antibiotic Ketek (telithromycin) in 2001-02.

Phase Forward (Waltham, Massachusetts), which provides data management systems for clinical trials and drug safety, has acquired privately held Green Mountain Logic for $5.25 million in cash.