The Swiss molecular diagnostics company, Biocartis SA, has raised €30 million in a Series B financing round which was supported by the new investors, Johnson & Johnson Development Corp and the Debiopharm Group.
Sanofi-Aventis has agreed to pay up to $335 million for rights to a novel peptide that appears to stimulate the growth of new insulin-producing sites in the pancreas. The compound, for diabetes, was discovered by CureDM Inc of the US.
Crucell NV said that it has reached an agreement with GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals to combine their vaccine technologies to produce a second generation vaccine for people at risk of malaria. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Scientists in the UK have identified a gene that appears to enable tumour cells to survive radiotherapy. Suppression of the gene could therefore make current radiotherapies more effective, according to the charity, Cancer Research UK.
GlaxoSmithKline Plc has agreed to pay $35 million upfront to Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc for access to its technology for RNA-targeted therapeutics. The companies will be developing new drugs for rare diseases.
Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH has launched a €100 million venture capital fund to invest in advanced medical technology such as stems cells, RNA silencing and new generation protein and antibody technologies.
The US Food and Drug Administration has said it can’t approve a new lipid-lowering drug from AstraZeneca Plc and Abbott Laboratories without further data. The two companies announced receiving the complete response letter on 30 March 2010.
Silence Therapeutics Plc said that it has expanded its collaboration with Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma Company of Japan in the area of small interfering RNA (siRNA) delivery to include additional disease targets. Financial details were not disclosed.
The Roche group said that its cancer drug, Xeloda (capecitabine) has been approved in Europe in combination with the chemotherapy drug, oxaliplatin, for the adjuvant treatment of patients with early colon cancer. The combination is called Xelox.
An experimental lung cancer drug that was strategically important to both Novartis and Antisoma Plc has run into what looks to be an insurmountable obstacle.