News

The Wellcome Trust, Britain’s biggest medical charity, has allocated £79 million from 2007 to 2010 for seed projects that commercial investors would not ordinarily touch.

The European Commission has issued a call for proposals to carry out a series of projects under its Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) on health, including proposals specifically targeted at small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs), according to Ludovica Serafini of the Commission’s Directorate-General for Research.

Two orphan designated medicinal products have been recommended by the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) for licensing in Europe, according to an agency press release.

Shire Plc has agreed to pay up to $825 million for an experimental drug for the prevention and reduction of scarring in connection with surgery. The licensing agreement, with Renovo Group Plc, would give Shire exclusive rights to market the drug, called Juvista, in every country except the member states of the European Union.

There are a growing number of instances where charitable organisations can provide money to profit-making companies and still demonstrate that they are working in the public interest, according Richard Seabrook, head of business development at the Wellcome Trust.

Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics AMT Holding NV, which develops gene-based therapies for orphan diseases, raised €50 million in an initial public offering on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange.

Swedish biotech companies increased their pipeline of drug candidates substantially in 2007 compared with a year earlier, according to a survey conducted by SwedenBio, an industry association, and two government agencies, Invest in Sweden Agency (ISA) and Vinnova.

A guideline outlining how companies should prepare to conduct first-in-man studies of novel medicinal products in Europe, should be completed in July, 2007, according to Patrick Le Courtois, head of the Unit for Pre-Authorisation of Medicines for Human Use at the European Medicines Agency (EMEA).

Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics (AMT) Holding NV, which develops gene-based therapies for orphan diseases, expects to raise around €45 million in an initial public offering on the Eurolist-by-Euronext section of the Euronext Amsterdam Stock Exchange.

Santaris Pharma A/S of Denmark announced at the June 2007 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago that its RNA antagonist for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) showed promising results in an initial Phase I/II clinical trial.