Industry news

New device diagnoses and predicts lung problems

Marchmont Innovation News

At the Far East Center for Respiratory Physiology and Pathology in Blagoveshchensk, in the Amur region some 7,800km east of Moscow, researchers have come up with a new device to diagnose allergy to cold and a range of dangerous respiratory diseases in patients. 

Significant increase in pharmaceutical substances imports this year in Russia

Remedium

Russian drugmakers and foreign companies operating in the country have significantly increased the volume of pharmaceutical substances imports this year, a spokesman for Veronika Skvortsova, Russia’s Minister of Health, recently said, reports The Pharma Letter’s local correspondent.

The top 10 biopharma CROs in the world—mid-2017 edition

John Carroll / Endpoints News

Huddled with five employees in a tiny Chapel Hill house, Quintiles Transnational founder Dennis Gillings began breaking down the many things drug companies needed done when testing in humans and started doing them much more reliably than his clients could, and with that, gave rise to the modern CRO industry. The year was 1982 and the company has dominated clinical outsourcing for the 35 years since.

Advanced multiple myeloma drug candidate gets Russian backing

Marchmont Innovation News

Primer Capital, a Russian biotech-focused VC fund, has supported the development of a drug candidate by Russian company Hemopharm to help multiple myeloma patients. No deal’s value has been made public. In a message to Marchmont News the fund’s press service said the investment will fund preclinical trials. 

‘Hit-and-run’ gene therapy nanoparticles could enhance CAR-T treatments

Arlene Weintraub / FierceBiotech

Scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have developed a tool that they believe could address both those shortcomings of CAR-T and other forms of cell engineering. They have invented nanoparticles that deliver proteins to cells, which in turn edit those cells’ genes temporarily. Lead author and bioengineer Matthias Stephan describes it as “hit-and-run” gene therapy, and he believes the technique will streamline the manufacturing of cell-based therapies.

Industry puts building Big Biotechs, attracting 2,000 Big Pharma discovery scientists on wish list for U.K. government

Nick Paul Taylor / Fierce Biotech

The United Kingdom life sciences sector has called for (PDF) the government to make changes that help grow Big Biotechs and attract thousands of researchers. Industry leaders put together the wish list to influence an upcoming deal between the sector and an increasingly interventionist government.  

Pfizer, Celgene and Roche are climbing pharma VC league table

Phil Taylor / FierceBiotech

Corporate venture capital (CVC) has long been an important source of capital for early-stage biotechs and shows no signs of diminishing, with more and more biopharma companies stepping up their investment activity.

FDA ushers in a new era in cancer treatment with ‘historic’ CAR-T approval for Novartis

John Carroll / Endpoints News

The FDA has approved the world’s first CAR-T therapy, giving a green light to Novartis for Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) in what regulators themselves describe as an historic event.

Sequencing all 24 human chromosomes uncovers rare disorders

U.S.National Institute of Health

Extending noninvasive prenatal screening to all 24 human chromosomes can detect genetic disorders that may explain miscarriage and abnormalities during pregnancy, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions. Because of the way data have been analyzed, typical genomic tests performed during pregnancy have targeted extra copies of chromosomes 21, 18 and 13, but rarely evaluated all 24 chromosomes. 

New method identifies potential targets in neurological disorders

Amirah Al Idrus / FiercePharma

MeCP2 duplication syndrome (MDS) is a neurological condition characterized by moderate to severe intellectual disability. But any increase or decrease in the expression of the protein MeCP2 can lead to a range of disorders, including severe motor dysfunction and autistic behavior. Now, Baylor College-led researchers have singled out a potential target for the treatment of MDS—a finding that could have wider implications in neurological disease.