News

The executive credited with focusing the research efforts of the Roche Group on the molecular pathology of disease is to retire.

A group of biotechnology company chief executives and investors has called on the UK government to contribute at least £500 million for investment in Britain’s biotech sector, which can no longer count on getting sufficient funding from private sources because of the worldwide banking crisis.

Newron Pharmaceuticals SpA has concluded a deal with YA Global Investments LP that allows Newron to choose when, and in what amounts, to sell its shares over a three-year period for a total of up to CHF 30 million.

The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) will soon propose a revision of its policy for the handling of commercially confidential information so as to make more regulatory documents available to the public.

Evotec AG has entered into a three-year collaboration pact with Novartis AG to develop small molecule therapies.

An appeals body of the European Patent Office has rejected on morality grounds a controversial  stem cell patent application from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) relating to a method for obtaining embryonic stem cell cultures from primates.

Many small companies in the biotech arena are worried about running out of cash to fund their research programmes because of the liquidity problems in the international banking system. Biopharmaceutical companies have their own anxieties as demonstrated by what appears to be a secular increase in the number of very expensive failures in late-stage clinical tests. However, an option deal might be a way of marrying the disparate needs of little pharma and big pharma. Here is an example of how option strategy works in practice.

Privately-owned Cellzome Inc is to receive a grant of up to €3.85 million from the German government. Spread over five years, the grant will enable Cellzome’s Heidelberg unit to expand its proteomics platform for the discovery and development of new drugs.

Novartis AG has increased its exploratory pipeline of new molecular entities (NMEs) and within that group, it is allocating more resource to biologics. The Swiss multinational gave an update on its research and development activities on 19 November 2008 at which time it highlighted gains in overall productivity

A decision by the European Patent Office’s (EPO) Opposition Division to revoke a patent for diagnosing susceptibility to breast and ovarian cancer has been overturned by the EPO’s Technical Board of Appeal. However, the scope of the restored patent held by Myriad Genetics Inc has been reduced.