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FAB Pharma to develop new class of anti-MRSA drugs

FAB Pharma today announced the completion of a €2.3 million round of series A funding led by CDC innovation and co-led by Bioam Gestion.

14 Sep 2009

Monoamine oxidases responsible for personality and behaviour

Antisocial and aggressive behaviours represent a widespread and expensive social problem. Recent research has convincingly shown that there is a strong interaction between genetic inheritance and environment for development of personality and behaviour.

14 Sep 2009

Genspera to commence G-202 Phase I trial following FDA approval

GenSpera, Inc. announced today that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved its Investigational New Drug (IND) application to begin a Phase I study with its target activated pro-drug, G-202, for the treatment of cancer.

11 Sep 2009

Merck update on the status of telcagepant clinical development programs

Merck & Co., Inc. today updated the status of the clinical development programs for telcagepant (MK-0974) and MK-3207, the Company's investigational oral calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) receptor antagonists for the intermittent treatment of acute migraine.

11 Sep 2009

Phase II clinical trial of TAK-700 for treating advanced prostate cancer commences

Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited and its wholly-owned subsidiary Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company today announced the initiation of the Phase II portion of a Phase I/II clinical trial of TAK-700 in patients with advanced prostate cancer.

11 Sep 2009

Human neural stem cells to treat Pelizaeus-Merzbacher Disease

StemCells, Inc. (NASDAQ:STEM) announced today that it will soon initiate with the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Children’s Hospital a Phase I clinical trial to evaluate the therapeutic potential of StemCells’ proprietary HuCNS-SC® product candidate (purified human neural stem cells) to treat Pelizaeus-Merzbacher Disease (PMD), a myelination disorder that primarily affects infants and young children.

10 Sep 2009

Roche conducts third Phase 1 clinical trial utilizing Halozyme’s Enhanze Technology

Halozyme Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: HALO), a biopharmaceutical company developing and commercializing products targeting the extracellular matrix, today announced that the first patient was dosed in a Phase 1 pharmacokinetic clinical trial using Enhanze™ Technology (rHuPH20, recombinant human hyaluronidase) in a subcutaneous formulation of a Roche biologic.

10 Sep 2009

Brain's SCN is the master clock that synchronizes other biological clocks in the body

Alexis Webb enters a small room at Washington University in St. Louis with walls, floor and ceiling painted dark green, shuts the door, turns off the lights and bends over a microscope in a black box draped with black cloth. Through the microscope, she can see a single nerve cell on a glass cover slip glowing dimly.

10 Sep 2009

New Influenza A/H1N1 detection kit launched

QIAGEN, today announced both the launch of a new Influenza A/H1N1 test and several updates to its activities in providing solutions for the global surveillance of the swine flu pandemic. QIAGEN’s new kit enables both the highly sensitive and specific detection of the novel Influenza A/H1N1, the virus that causes “swine flu”, as well as of all other known Influenza A and B virus strains.

10 Sep 2009

ARUP Laboratories' scientist receives grant to research HIV therapies

ARUP Laboratories, a national clinical and anatomic pathology reference laboratory and a leader in innovative laboratory research and development, announced that ARUP's Tanya Sandrock, PhD, Research & Development scientist, received a prestigious National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to research additional HIV therapies.

9 Sep 2009

Protalix receives orphan drug designation for prGCD

Protalix BioTherapeutics, Inc. (NYSE-Amex:PLX), announced today that it has received notice from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that the FDA’s Office of Orphan Products Development has granted orphan drug designation to prGCD, the Company’s proprietary plant cell expressed recombinant form of glucocerebrosidase (GCD) for the treatment of Gaucher disease.

8 Sep 2009

Small molecule inhibitors could create new combination therapies

Scientists at Fox Chase Cancer Center have discovered a unique method of attack that may be used to inhibit signaling enzymes called kinases, which often have a role in sustaining drug-resistant cancerous cells. They have confirmed that IPA-3, a small molecular inhibitor of a kinase called PAK1, targets the enzyme's regulatory domain, mimicking how enzymes are naturally regulated within cells.

8 Sep 2009

Insects can be used to test the efficiency of new drugs

Insects, such as some moths and fruit flies, react to microbial infection in the same way as mammals and so can be used to test the efficiency of new drugs, thereby reducing the need for animal testing. Dr Kevin Kavanagh from the National University of Ireland - Maynooth, presented his research findings at the Society for General Microbiology's meeting at Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, today (8 September).

7 Sep 2009

Molecularly targeted nanocarriers deliver the cytolytic peptide melittin specifically to tumor cells in mice, reducing tumor growth

When bees sting, they pump into their victims a peptide toxin called melittin that destroys cell membranes. Now, by encapsulating this extremely potent molecule within a nanoparticle, researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have created a potential new type of anticancer therapy with the potential to target a wide range of tumors. This work was reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

7 Sep 2009

Identifying a specific molecular signature can help customize cancer treatment

A molecular signature that helps account for the aggressive behavior of a variety of cancers such as pancreatic, breast and melanoma may also predict the likelihood of successful treatment with a particular anti-cancer drug. The finding, which could lead to a personalized approach to treatment for a variety of solid tumors that are currently resistant to therapies, will be published September 6 in the advance online edition of Nature Medicine.

7 Sep 2009

Ipsen grants license to Debiopharm for developing and commercialising cancer treatment

Ipsen (Euronext:IPN), an innovation-driven global specialty pharmaceutical Group and Debiopharm Group (Debiopharm), a Swiss-based global biopharmaceutical group of companies with a focus on the development of prescription drugs that target unmet medical needs, announced today the signature of an agreement under which Debiopharm is granted an exclusive worldwide license to develop and commercialise Ipsen's first-in-class inhibitor of the CDC25 phosphatase enzyme (now Debio 0931), for the treatment of various human cancers.

7 Sep 2009

Debiopharm granted license to develop and commercialise CDC25

Ipsen, an innovation-driven global specialty pharmaceutical Group and Debiopharm Group (Debiopharm), a Swiss-based global biopharmaceutical group of companies with a focus on the development of prescription drugs that target unmet medical needs, announced today the signature of an agreement under which Debiopharm is granted an exclusive worldwide license to develop and commercialise Ipsen’s first-in-class inhibitor of the CDC25 phosphatase enzyme (now Debio 0931), for the treatment of various human cancers.

7 Sep 2009

Securities class action lawsuit filed against Repros Therapeutics

Feazell & Tighe, L.L.P. announces that a securities class action lawsuit has been filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas on behalf of all persons or entities who purchased or otherwise acquired the common stock of Repros Therapeutics Inc. (“Repros” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq:RPRX), between July 1, 2009 and August 3, 2009, inclusive (the “Class Period”).

5 Sep 2009

New role discovered for sphingosine-1-phosphate

Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine researchers have discovered a new role for the bioactive lipid messenger, sphingosine-1-phosphate, or S1P, that is abundant in our blood - a finding that could lead to a new generation of drugs to fight cancer and inflammatory disease.

5 Sep 2009

Study reveals elevated cTnT levels in post-CABG patients

Levels of a biomarker used in the diagnosis of heart attacks are almost universally elevated in patients who have undergone coronary-artery bypass grafting (CABG) and, when markedly elevated, are powerfully prognostic, a team of researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Heart Center has found.

5 Sep 2009