Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH has launched a €100 million venture capital fund to invest in advanced medical technology such as stems cells, RNA silencing and new generation protein and antibody technologies.
The US Food and Drug Administration has said it can’t approve a new lipid-lowering drug from AstraZeneca Plc and Abbott Laboratories without further data. The two companies announced receiving the complete response letter on 30 March 2010.
Silence Therapeutics Plc said that it has expanded its collaboration with Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma Company of Japan in the area of small interfering RNA (siRNA) delivery to include additional disease targets. Financial details were not disclosed.
The Roche group said that its cancer drug, Xeloda (capecitabine) has been approved in Europe in combination with the chemotherapy drug, oxaliplatin, for the adjuvant treatment of patients with early colon cancer. The combination is called Xelox.
An experimental lung cancer drug that was strategically important to both Novartis and Antisoma Plc has run into what looks to be an insurmountable obstacle.
Neuropharm Group Plc, whose investigational treatment for autism failed to show efficacy at Phase 3, is exploring a voluntary liquidation and a return of cash to shareholders. The UK company is listed on AIM.
Thomas Klaue, chief financial officer of MediGene AG since 2007, is leaving the company following differences with other members of the management team over strategy.
Evotec AG is on course to achieve profitability in 2012, according to a company statement released in connection with its 2009 results.
A team of researchers from North America has shown that it is possible to reverse the process of aging in certain induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS), potentially increasing their usefulness as future therapies for age-related degenerative disease.
AstraZeneca Plc has concluded a collaborative research agreement with the University of Pennsylvania in the US to generate new drug candidates for Alzheimer’s disease. Financial details were not disclosed.