News

Forbion Capital Partners has raised €190 million for investment in the life sciences in what the managing partner described as conditions that have never been more challenging.

In the realm of nanotechnology, size matters. But exactly what is meant by ‘nanoscale’ and ‘nanomedicine’ is still open for discussion. This was one of the themes to emerge from the first day of a two-day workshop on nanotechnology which is being hosted by the European Medicines Agency in London.

The US Food and Drug Administration has issued its second ‘complete response letter’ to the AstraZeneca unit, MedImmune, rejecting its application to market motavizumab, a new monoclonal antibody for respiratory syncytial virus disease.

The Roche Group has announced plans to invest $25 million upfront for access to new peptide technology that locks peptides into their biologically active shape, mimicking the structures found in nature.

Genzyme Corp has rejected an unsolicited cash takeover bid from Sanofi-Aventis which values the company at $69 per share or $18.5 billion. The rejection was communicated in a letter to the Sanofi CEO Christopher Viehbacher.

Investigators working for a Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute-funded study have found that patients with a particular DNA variant may experience a build-up of glutamate in nerve cell junctions of the brain, a process that is thought to lead to migraine attacks.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a new treatment for high blood pressure from Novartis which combines the renin inhibitor, aliskiren, with the calcium channel blocker, amlodipine, in a single pill.

A new company has been set up in the Benelux to discover and develop small molecule drugs for treating bone and joint diseases. It combines assets from TiGenix NV of Belgium and Therosteon BV of the Netherlands.

Cancer Research Technology of the UK has signed an agreement with Bayer Schering Pharma AG to evaluate new leptin antagonist peptides as potential treatments for gynaecological diseases, including cancer.

US stem cell research involving human embryos received a setback after a US judge ruled that a 2009 Presidential order expanding funding for this research is illegal.