Articles By Marcus Johnson
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Merck And Bionomics Announce $526M Drug Research Partnership
6/26/2014
Merck and Bionomics have announced a $526 million drug research partnership — which is an extension of the company’s existing agreement. Merck and Bionomics will be working together on its BNC375 research program focused on treating the effects of Alzheimer’s disease and other central nervous system conditions.
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Stanford Researchers Find New Solution To Speed Up Drug Research
6/25/2014
Researchers at Stanford University have found a way to help speed up the drug discovery process. The researchers studied kinase proteins, which are responsible for exchanging messages and regulating the actions of other proteins throughout the body. Stanford researchers discovered a way to observe and report the behavior of the kinase proteins as they operate inside of living cells—something that was not previously possible. “We've been able to observe multiple kinases functioning in living cells, which is something no one else has ever seen," said Markus Covert, who works as an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford, and who was also the lead author of the study.
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New Zealand Researchers Screen Drugs To Treat Motor Neurone Disease
6/25/2014
Researchers at the University of Auckland’s Centre for Brain Research have announced that they’ve begun studying how different drugs affect Motor Neurone Disease. Led by Dr. Emma Scotter, the drug screening project team will research 4,000 different drugs in order to determine if any of the treatments are effective at changing the development of Motor Neurone Disease in patients’ brain cells. The 4,000 drugs that will be tested have been obtained from two large drug libraries and contain both manufactured and natural compounds.
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FDA Releases Proposed Social Media Guidelines
6/19/2014
As social media has exploded throughout the years, pharmaceutical companies have largely strayed away from the new form of media. That’s because the FDA had not yet laid out clear guidelines for what kind of marketing and promotion was acceptable for drug companies to post on social networks. This past Tuesday, the FDA released the long awaited proposed guidelines for social media use by drug companies, as well as for correcting misinformation posted by others.
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Soliris Drug Granted Orphan Drug Designation By FDA
6/19/2014
Alexion Pharmaceuticals announced that the FDA has granted the company’s Myasthenia Gravis (MG) drug Soliris (scientific name eculizumab) orphan drug designation. MG is a rare but serious and debilitating neurologic condition. Patients with MG suffer from uncontrolled complement activation which occurs because of antibodies directed at the neuromuscular junction.
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Pasireotide Drug Reduces Rate Of Dangerous Pancreatic Surgery Complications
6/19/2014
Pasireotide, which is manufactured by Novartis, has been shown to reduce the rate of dangerous and potentially fatal pancreatic surgery complications. Pancreatic surgery carries a number of risks, and as many as half of the patients requiring surgery develop serious complications. Between 2 and 4 percent of patients do not survive the procedure, making the mortality rate for the surgery extremely high.
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Advaxis Initiates A Phase 1/2 Trial Evaluating Higher Doses And Repeat Cycles Of Cervical Cancer Drug
6/19/2014
Advaxis Inc., a biotechnology company that focuses on developing immunotherapies to treat cancer, has announced that the Georgia Regents University Cancer Center has received approval from the Institutional Review Board to begin Phase ½ trials for the ADXS-HPV treatment.
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Ohio State And Emory Universities Announce Funding For Alzheimer's Research
6/12/2014
Ohio State and Emory University are the recipients of support and funding from the Harrington Discovery Institute at UH Case Medical Center and the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation. The two institutions are receiving the funding in order to continue research on promising Alzheimer’s treatments. The Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation will be providing the financial awards, which include a grant of $220,000 to Ohio State and a $101,000 grant to Emory. The Harrington Discovery Institute will provide project management support to the two institutions.
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Researchers Discover First Drug Therapy For Tongue Cancer
6/12/2014
Researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College have announced that they’ve discovered the first effective drug therapy for patients afflicted with tongue cancer. The researchers tested two drugs on mice: Bexarotene, which is currently FDA approved for T-cell lymphoma treatments, and CD1530, a synthetic version of vitamin A, which has some similarities to a cousin vitamin A derivative primarily used in acute promyeloctic leukemia treatments. The mice treated with the two drugs developed 75 percent fewer tumors on average compared to untreated mice.
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Meiji Group Announces $290 Million Acquisition Of CMO Medreich
6/12/2014
Meiji Holdings’ pharmaceutical division has announced that it has purchased Bangalore-based Medreich. The deal will cost the company $290 million. Meiji, which manufactures therapeutic drugs for the central nervous system, as well as anti-infection drugs and generic drug products, expects that this deal will expand its generic drugs portfolio and help the company become more prominent in India.