Industry news

Japan aims for high-end drug-device innovation and generics, but will it work?

EJ Lane / FeircePharmaAsia

Japan has ramped up spending on healthcare as part of a broader effort by the government to spur innovation and revive economic fortunes for drug and device makers while at the same time trying to tame costs for reimbursement and hiking sales taxes.

Indian industry acknowledges some compliance shortcomings, survey finds

Eric Palmer / FeircePharmaManufactoring

The FDA has banned nearly two dozen plants operated by Indian drugmakers in the past two years, leading some in India's industry to complain that the FDA has it in for the country's drugmakers. It is a contention that the FDA denies. Now, a new survey by a private consulting firm shows that a lot of industry insiders in India recognize there are shortcomings in compliance at their companies.

NIH researchers pilot predictive medicine by studying healthy people’s DNA

U.S. National Institute of Health

A new study by National Institutes of Health researchers has turned traditional genomics research on its head. Instead of trying to find a mutation in the genomic sequence of a person with a genetic disease, they sequenced the genomes of healthy participants, then analyzed the data to find “putative,” or presumed, mutations that would almost certainly lead to a genetic condition.

Utopia, dystopia: Separating truth from fiction in bioethics discussions

Jennifer Boggs / BioWorld

Let’s face it: Imagining the means of humanity’s ultimate destruction makes for great entertainment. There are no shortages of novels, movies and television shows featuring threats of global annihilation – zombie viruses, meteors hurtling through space, nuclear warfare – or opening up post-apocalyptic landscapes laid waste following a collision of unchecked scientific and technologic advances with the those worst of human traits – greed, irresponsibility, megalomania. 

Cancer in the crosshairs: ASCO brings fresh ideas, data jubilee across types

Randy Osborne / BioWorld

No one was surprised to see immune-based therapies taking much of the air time at this year's American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting, since they've dominated the key scientific powwow in cancer for several years, and a fountain of outcomes showed that targeted drugs, in combination regimens as well as single agents, still have plenty going for them.

China’s registration fees for drugs, devices seeing a drastic rise

Cornelia Zou / BioWorld

Biotech and medtech companies operating in China now have to pay more attention to the cost of regulatory approvals after the national regulator drastically raised registration application fees for both clinical trials and marketing approvals.

Getting better all the time for drug, medical device safety in China?

EJ Lane / FeircePharmaAsia

Over the weekend, China's leadership took the time to focus again on ensuring the quality of consumer goods with an underlying message for the medical device and drug industries highlighted by recent probes of top officials.

Big Pharma grapples with idiosyncrasies of orphan drug marketing

Beth Snyder Bulik / FiercePharmaMarketing

Orphan drugs are not alone anymore. Booming interest in R&D for drugs to treat rare diseases resulted in a record 440+ requests submitted to the FDA last year, with almost 300 designations granted and 48 approved--both also records. Then there are the M&A deals fueled by orphan meds, as major drugmakers snap up smaller drug developers to gain a foothold in the field.

04 June 2015

NovaMedica To Market Ferring’s IBD Therapies in Russia

Leonor Mateus Ferreira / IDB News Today

The Russian pharmaceutical company NovaMedica and the Swiss biopharmaceutical company Ferring Pharmaceuticals have established a partnership to bring novel gastroenterological drug treatments for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) to Russia. The two companies announced the signing of an agreement for commercializing a product line of treatments for ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease and bleeding fromesophageal varicose.

Artificial intelligence tops Google VC's list of high-potential life sci techs

Nick Paul Taylor / Fierce Biotech IT

Google Ventures President Bill Maris has put artificial intelligence at the top of a list of 8 technologies he sees as having the potential to revolutionize life sciences. The technologies are part of what Maris calls life science's "transistor moment," a trigger that will enable healthcare to advance at a rate comparable to the rapid rise of computing in recent decades.