News

Novartis’ management continued to implement measures to improve productivity in the third quarter as the company faced generic competition for the oncology drug Gleevec, and sales of its Alcon eye division declined.

A new Swiss biotech company, Inositec AG, has been launched with seed capital of CHF1.4 million ($1.42 million) to advance a drug candidate into the clinic using a new small molecule technology developed by researchers at ETH Zurich.

GlaxoSmithKline Plc reported higher revenue across its three main businesses in the third quarter, including a rise in sales for new respiratory products. This more than offset declines for Advair, the company’s off-patent asthma medicine.

Evotec AG, which operates a global drug discovery business, is proposing to acquire Cyprotex Plc, a London-listed contract research organisation, which has developed a service for measuring the performance of drugs under development called ADME-Tox.

  Roche Holding AG said that its sales rose 4.0% in the first nine months to CHF 37.5 billion (€34.59 billion), measured at constant exchange rates, compared with a 6% gain in the previous nine month period.

 Crispr Therapeutics AG, which is preparing nine gene-edited projects for clinical testing, has raised $91 million with an initial public offering (IPO) of shares on the Nasdaq market in the US and a private placement in Europe.

Research carried out in the Netherlands shows that a person’s risk of getting cancer cannot be explained by the number of errors found in DNA. Scientists at the University Medical Center Utrecht and the Hubrecht Institute have come to this conclusion after mapping the genetic profile of organoids.

A new medicine that is expected to protect against a rare liver disease known as primary biliary cholangitis, has been recommended for approval in the European Union following a Phase 3 study in which the treatment showed a clear benefit over placebo.

Dr Christopher J. Holloway, co-founder of the ERA Consulting Group and a member of the MedNous Editorial Board since 2007, died on 17 September 2016.

The Helsinn Group has joined the growing number of pharmaceutical companies that have decided to support early stage life science with a dedicated investment fund – the Helsinn Investment Fund SA.