Research & University News

It is something of a truism to say that money follows success. It is less easy to say why some companies are more successful than others, and how their successes can be repeated.

The AstraZeneca Plc unit, MedImmune, has entered into a three-year collaboration with the technology transfer arm of France’s National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) to research disease and potential drug candidates.

A Phase-3 study of motesanib, a small molecule antagonist of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) receptors, failed to meet its primary endpoint of improving the overall survival for patients with advanced, non-squamous, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the sponsor said.

The Roche group said that its investigational hedgehog pathway inhibitor, vismodegib, which is being developed to treat advanced basal cell carcinoma, met its primary endpoint of overall response in a pivotal Phase 2 clinical study.

A Phase 2 study of a gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease has met its primary endpoint for efficacy and demonstrated safety. The results have been published on-line in The Lancet Neurology, according to the sponsor, Neurologix Inc.

Tolerx Inc and GlaxoSmithKline Plc announced that a Phase 3 trial of otelixizumab for patients with new-onset Type 1 diabetes did not meet the primary efficacy endpoint of change in C-peptide, a marker of beta cell function, at 12 months.

Sanofi-Aventis SA and its partner, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc, have announced that their Phase 3 trial of the candidate drug, aflibercept, for second-line treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, combined with docetaxel, did not extend overall survival.

Généthon, a not-for profit French biotherapy laboratory, has announced a collaboration with the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in the US to work on the preclinical development of a gene therapy for myotubular myopathy.

Scientists from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in the US have reported transforming human embryonic stem cells into a type of neuron that plays a critical role in memory. The findings have been published in Stem Cells.

Researchers at Children’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts have reported finding a regulator of gene activity that can instruct epidermal stem cells to grow or stop growing, a finding that may have use for cancer as well as regenerative medicine.