News

The French state agency, Oseo Innovation, has awarded €1.8 million to a privately-held molecular diagnostics company in Nantes to support a biomarker project aimed at predicting rejections of kidney transplants.

Imperial Innovations Group Plc, reported a profit of £1.3 million for the half year ended 31 January 2009 compared with a year-earlier loss of £2.2 million. This was despite a fall in the value of its quoted company holdings.

ProtAffin AG of Austria has raised €14.1 million in a Series B round which will be used to complete pre-clinical development and Phase 1 testing of a new anti-inflammatory compound. The round was co-led by Atlas Venture and SR One Ltd.

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.

The European Medicines Agency has given positive opinions for four medicines, one of which is AstraZeneca’s Iressa (gefitinib), a targeted treatment for non-small cell lung cancer. The positive opinion follows an earlier application withdrawal.

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).

Merck & Co has announced plans to invest in a combination monoclonal antibody treatment which is being investigated for Clostridium difficile infection, the primary cause of infectious diarrhea in hospitalized elderly patients.

The Roche Group said that a Phase 3 trial of its antibody, Avastin (bevacizumab), plus chemotherapy, for the treatment of colon cancer immediately after surgery, did not meet its primary endpoint of lowering the risk of the cancer returning.

Actelion Ltd, the Swiss specialist pharmaceutical company, reported a 26.1% increase to CHF 405.6 million in net revenues for the first quarter as a result of continuing strong sales of Tracleer (bosentan), a treatment for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Tracleer sales rose by 22.5% to CHF 352.2 million and accounted for about 87% of first quarter revenue.

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.