In a boost for the emerging field of epigenetics, privately-owned CellCentric Ltd of Cambridge, UK has negotiated access to one of its cancer discovery programmes to Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd. The deal is valued at about $200 million.
The ReNeuron Group Plc has raised £4.7 million, before expenses, from a private share placement with existing and new institutional investors in order to finance its ground-breaking, first-in-man study of a stem cell therapy for stroke.
The US Food and Drug Administration has given Novartis AG’s investigational drug for multiple sclerosis, fingolimod, priority review status, a speedier regulatory pathway for drugs that promise major advances in treatment.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has recommended approval of GlaxoSmithKline’s new angiogenesis inhibitor for renal cell cancer, Votrient (pazopanib), conditional on further proof of the drug’s effectiveness.
The European Medicines Agency has taken the unusual step of rejecting a marketing authorisation application for an antibiotic because the human studies supporting the drug did not comply with good clinical practice.
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved MabThera ( rituximab), plus chemotherapy, for people with previously untreated or previously treated CD20-positive chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, the Roche group announced.
Ablynx NV has been awarded €1.2 million by an agency of the regional government of Flanders in Belgium to accelerate development of a preclinical antibody therapeutic for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
Antisoma Plc expects to report Phase 3 data for ASA404, its drug for non-small cell lung cancer, by the middle of 2011. Assuming the data are positive, the company’s partner, Novartis, will file for marketing authorisations that same year.
MorphoSys AG of Germany and Galápagos NV of Belgium have expanded a discovery alliance aimed at identifying new antibody targets in bone and joint diseases, to include a fourth target. Financial details weren’t disclosed.
Following its takeover of Schering-Plough, Merck & Co has reported steep increases in 2009 sales and net income. It has also confirmed that it will further rationalise its operations with a planned 15% reduction in its workforce by the end of 2012.