Just six months after approving Adcetris (brentuximab vedotin), the US Food and Drug Administration has announced that the developer, Seattle Genetics Inc, will be tightening the drug’s label to warn against the rare PML brain infection.
Novartis Pharmaceuticals said it plans to eliminate about 1,960 positions in the US ahead of the loss of patent protection for valsartan, and the cessation of a Phase 3 study for a new indication for aliskiren. The stoppage of the trial has triggered a regulatory safety review.
AstraZeneca Plc has announced a three-year collaboration with the healthcare data company, IMS Health, to study the use of drugs in medical practice in order to identify market gaps and inform future decisions on discovery and development.
Sanofi SA and two US venture capital companies have reached an agreement to create a new biotechnology company that will use proprietary genomic technology to discover drugs from natural substances that are hidden within micro-organisms.
Qiagen NV, the Netherlands-based holding company for the German diagnostics company of the same name, has announced agreements with two US companies for rights to biomarkers that are expected to play a role in the treatment of cancer.
Cardio3 BioSciences SA has secured €3.1 million in new funding from the Walloon regional government of Belgium and from the European Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) to support development of its stem-cell technology.
KalVista Pharmaceuticals Ltd, a new UK ophthalmology company, is set to receive up to $2.2 million in milestone-based support from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) to finance a pre-clinical drug to treat diabetic macula edema.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company has announced plans to acquire the Georgia-based company Inhibitex Inc for $2.5 billion in order to expand its portfolio of new medicines in virology and investigational medicines for hepatitis C.
BerGenBio AS of Norway has completed an $8.8 million Series A financing round to take its lead cancer compound into the clinic and develop a companion diagnostic. The lead investors are Sarsia Seed AS and Investinor AS.
Scientists from Cambridge and Harvard Universities have reported that the deterioration of CNS tissue in aged mice can be reversed by exposing them to cells from younger animals. Their findings appear in the 6 January issue of Cell Stem Cell.