A new web-based portal designed to help scientists and clinicians locate the latest cancer research has been launched by the UK National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI). The project is being funded by the UK government, charities and industry.
Sanofi-aventis has become the latest multinational pharmaceutical company to decentralise its research and development business in order to generate more ideas for new drugs from contact with scientists and entrepreneurs outside the company.
The Wellcome Trust has awarded €5.15 million to a vaccine institute run by Novartis AG to investigate a new bivalent vaccine for Typhoid fever.
Scientists have described a mechanism that appears to explain why patients with pancreatic cancer can be resistant to the chemotherapy drug, gemcitabine. Their findings appear in the May 2009 issue of Science.
Cancer Research UK has agreed to conduct a first-in-man study of a novel anti-cancer drug owned by GlaxoSmithKline, but not currently a priority of the UK multinational.
The AstraZeneca Plc subsidiary, KuDOS Pharmaceuticals Ltd, has increased its investment in a programme at Newcastle University that seeks to develop drugs inhibiting DNA-dependent protein kinase, thereby improving cancer treatments.
Max Planck Innovation GmbH, the technology transfer arm of the Max Planck Society, has announced the launch of a new €100 million fund to invest in pharmaceutical projects originating from the society’s research organisations.
Merck & Co has become the latest big pharmaceutical company to announce plans to source a significant part of its biomedical research programmes from outside the company.
Pfizer Inc has announced plans to fund research into stem cell-based therapies for macular degeneration and other retinal diseases at University College London (UCL).
Privately-owned CellCentric of Cambridge, UK, has secured an agreement with the Center for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, Spain giving it access to intellectual property generated by Professors Ramin Shiekhattar and Luciano Di Croce in epigenetics.