Archive for the ‘Events’ Category
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) on the Gulf Coastline
Last Updated on Saturday, 24 July 2010 04:24 Written by Editor Monday, 12 July 2010 02:22
Resource: EPA – United States Environmental Protection Agency
Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) on the Gulf Coastline
EPA is analyzing air samples for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) – including specifically, benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene, and xylene. EPA is sampling for these pollutants because they are present in oil and because, at elevated concentrations, they may cause health problems, including cancer.
These chemicals are also emitted by many other sources, such as motor vehicles, industries, and paints or solvents. The monitors cannot determine where the VOCs originate. Therefore VOC levels in the air around the monitors could be coming from the oil spill or from other sources.
To evaluate the VOCs EPA scientists compare air sampling results to health-based screening concentrations (also called “screening levelsâ€) in the Gulf region. These screening levels are developed from health effects information about each VOC, including information regarding exposure levels that might pose an increased risk of health problems. At this time, EPA is using health-protective screening levels that assume a person is breathing a pollutant continuously (24 hours a day, seven days a week) for as long as one year. EPA will re-evaluate this time-period if needed.
How EPA is using sampling data and screening levels for the VOCs
Monitoring staff are taking air samples at several locations along the Gulf coast. The air quality samples are collected in canisters, which are shipped to a laboratory for analysis. The daily results shown in the table are the average 24-hour concentration for each day.
EPA will compare individual measurements as well as long-term average (i.e. levels averaged over many days) to the screening level. Since the screening levels are based on exposure lasting for many months, this average is more appropriate for evaluating the potential risk to health than any single measurement. But also screening the individual measurements allows EPA to closely track the results.
Results that are below the health-based screening level generally indicate a low potential for health concerns for exposures up to a year. In addition, a single daily reading that is higher than the screening level does not indicate a health problem will occur.
However, if a measured concentration is above the health-based screening level, EPA will investigate further:
- EPA would look at how high the concentration is above the screening level, how long the concentration stays above the screening level, and the impact of the concentration on the running average concentration over many days.
- EPA will also look at how these measurements compare to measurements in the region prior to the spill. EPA would also look at information for that chemical, and the situations in which it might cause health problems.
- After this further investigation, EPA would determine whether follow-up actions are needed.
- Possible follow-up actions include conducting additional monitoring to better identify the source of the pollutant, or to track the pollutant concentration over time.
- If there is cause for immediate concern, EPA will work with state and local officials to notify people in the area through local news media.
source: gulfofmexicohealth.com
Posted under Events, Press Releases, USA and Canada | No Comments
Institutional Profile: Sanford-Burnham Sets Up Shop in Florida
Last Updated on Saturday, 24 July 2010 04:09 Written by Editor Thursday, 13 May 2010 10:04
The Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, headquartered in La Jolla, CA, dedicated its new Lake Nona campus in Orlando, FL, last fall. The $85 million building, which opened in April 2009, will employ more than 300 people. Florida attracted Sanford-Burnham in 2006 by offering a $350 million incentive package that included land, construction funds, and in-kind services.
The Lake Nona facility is part of a medical park that includes the University of Central Florida College of Medicine, Nemours Children’s Hospital, and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center-Orlando.
Researchers at Lake Nona will continue to carry out cutting-edge research that will complement areas established at Sanford-Burnham in La Jolla—cancer, infectious and inflammatory disease, aging and stem cells, and neuroscience. In addition, Lake Nona houses a new center for diabetes and obesity research that will cover cardiovascular disease, as well.
Chemical Biology Theme
A strong emphasis on chemical biology underlies all research areas and drives investigations. Chemical biology focuses on identifying small molecules that modulate disease pathways. “That theme weaves itself throughout our research and gets us closer to discoveries that are relevant to small molecule drug discovery,†says John Reed, M.D., Ph.D., president and CEO of Sanford-Burnham.
Finding the correct small molecule can advance a program to prototype medicines and clinical trials. Sanford-Burnham is one of only a few academic centers in the U.S. with advanced high-throughput screening (HTS) systems and access to a large chemical libraries approaching one million small molecules.
Sanford-Burnham’s small molecule drug discovery program is embodied within the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics (CPCCG), an effort that involves 75 scientists working on both coasts. The development of HTS assays takes place in La Jolla, while Lake Nona specializes in HTS and houses an ultra-HTS robotic screening center.
The CPCCG provides a one-stop shop whose services span a range of biochemical and cell-based screens to find chemical hits and optimize them into biological probes or potential drugs. The equipment includes a first-in-class, highly flexible HighRes Biosolutions 3-POD nonagon ultra-HTS system and two PerkinElmer Janus workstations. “The robot can run more than one million assays in a workday at Lake Nona,†explains Dr. Reed.
Collaborators Wanted
The newly installed system is capable of handling 50 HTS campaigns a year, yet is currently operating below capacity. This makes Sanford-Burnham an ideal partner for pharmaceutical companies seeking to externalize R&D projects. “We’re looking for corporate partners that fit into our therapeutic research areas,†says Dr. Reed. Collaborations with Sanford-Burnham could identify innovative drug candidates to strengthen pharmaceutical pipelines. Two new partners are Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development (J&JPRD) and Magellan Bioscience.
Sanford-Burnham will provide J&JPRD with access to HTS assay technologies to investigate drug targets for inflammatory diseases. The collaboration started in January 2009 and is Sanford-Burnham’s first broad-based partnership with a large pharmaceutical company.
Magellan Bioscience began collaborating with Sanford-Burnham in July 2009. The multidisciplinary drug discovery program identifies and develops novel marine microbial compounds that show potential as tools for biological research or new medicines. Marine microbes and their natural products provide a new source of drug candidates for the pharmaceutical industry.
Sanford-Burnham also offers NMR-based screening against targets for which no assay has been developed. “This is unusual in a nonprofit environment, and it’s one of our fortes,†adds Dr. Reed.
The NMR facility at Sanford-Burnham is the largest of its type affiliated with a nonprofit research institution, according to Dr. Reed. Sanford-Burnham’s NMR center includes four fully dedicated high-field magnets with automated sample changers, a library with 4,000 chemical fragments, and three-dimensional (3-D) modeling programs to evaluate hits. Other tools include robotic x-ray crystallography to investigate crystal structures of compounds and their binding to targets and high-content screening microscopy that performs HT phenotype screening.
Engineers at Sanford-Burnham are advancing the field of HT microscopy by developing software for automated image analysis and 3-D imaging systems to monitor cells growing in 3-D conformations in culture.
No Culture Gap
Pharmaceutical firms that collaborate with Sanford-Burnham will not face a cultural divide. A blend of academic and industrial scientists at Sanford-Burnham makes it easier to do business with them. About one-fifth of Sanford-Burnham’s drug discovery researchers have backgrounds in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry.
“They bring the discipline and competency of industrial settings,†says Dr. Reed, such as being accustomed to working toward milestone-driven timelines on projects. The same timeline-driven management style guides the workflow at the CPCCG to fulfill contracts with the NIH and the NCI.
Another reason to partner with Sanford-Burnham is its strong reputation for scientific publishing, Dr. Reed says. For the past decade, Sanford-Burnham scientists have ranked first worldwide for scientific citations in biology and biochemistry, according to Thomson Reuters Journal Citation Reports. “The work we do is high quality and has a high impact,†Dr. Reed adds. In addition, Sanford-Burnham ranks second in the number of U.S. patents received for the amount of grant dollars awarded.
Collaborators can work with Sanford-Burnham researchers in California or Florida. The East and West Coast laboratories operate as a fully integrated, single organization, and researchers conduct daily teleconferences. Sanford-Burnham is exploring opportunities to build on this infrastructure to expand to other sites such as Asia in the future.
Posted under Business and Investment, Events, Industry News, Press Releases, USA and Canada | No Comments
BioServe to Test for Swine Flu in India
Last Updated on Thursday, 22 October 2009 10:59 Written by Editor Thursday, 22 October 2009 10:59
Beltsville, MD; and Hyderbad, AP, India, October 21, 2009 – BioServe, a leading provider of clinical bio-samples and research services, today announced that it has been selected by the Government of the State of Andhra Pradesh in India and The Institute of Preventive Medicine (IPM) Hyderabad as one of two private diagnostic centers to test samples of Influenza A – H1N1 (Swine Flu) in afflicted patients. BioServe’s ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 17025:2005 (NABL) certified genomic laboratory in Hyderabad, India is one of the most advanced full-service reference laboratories in the country.
In addition, to help prepare the Indian health system for a robust response to pandemic outbreaks of swine flu, BioServe is also developing a powerful one-step PCR diagnostic test for effective identification of swine flu, at a price point that makes it possible to carry out mass screenings of large populations in India. The test will be certified in accordance with the prevailing guidelines for diagnosis of virus strains, and is scheduled for a market launch upon due validation and verification.
According to the Indian Government’s most recent data, there have been 12,880 confirmed cases of swine flu and 415 deaths from the virus. The country’s Ministry of Health views the addition of BioServe’s new diagnostic center as critical to expediting the testing of swine flu samples, which will enable the authorities to diagnose more cases and start treatment immediately, thus mitigating the risks of spreading the disease further throughout the population.
Rama Modali, President, BioServe, said, “We are proud to be a key part in India’s fight against the pandemic outbreaks of swine flu. BioServe’s clinical testing labs, as well as our indigenous swine flu diagnostic test currently in development, will help provide the rapid and accurate diagnoses that are critical to disease containment and treatment in India and countries around the world.â€
About BioServe
BioServe provides pharmaceutical, biotechnology, clinical and academic research markets with comprehensive ‘biomaterial to validated data’ genomic research services that generate pre-clinical data needed for breakthroughs in drug discovery and molecular diagnostics. BioServe’s services feature over 600,000 high quality, well-annotated and clinically relevant biological specimens from its Global Repository® and a suite of complimentary CLIA-certified genomic research services. Used together or separately BioServe’s genomic services enable biomedical researchers to efficiently conduct genomic and proteomic research, validate drug and diagnostic targets and correlate clinical data with molecular data for the development of improved drugs and diagnostics. BioServe has headquarters in Beltsville, MD and Hyderabad, India. For more information please visit www.bioserve.com or call 301-470-3362.
Posted under Events, Press Releases, Swine Flu Research | No Comments
InVivo and CEVEC pharmaceuticals sign license agreement regarding the use of human CAP-Tâ„¢ Technology for production of recombinant proteins
Last Updated on Thursday, 8 October 2009 10:44 Written by Editor Thursday, 8 October 2009 10:44
Cologne, Germany, October 01, 2009 / b3c newswire / – CEVEC Pharmaceuticals, the developer of a novel human expression system derived from amniocytes and the contract manufacturer InVivo BioTech Services GmbH announced today the signing of a strategic license agreement. This license enables InVivo to offer its customers the production of their diagnostic ad preclinical grade material very fast and in highest quality, including authentic human glycosylation patterns, using the novel and proprietary CAP-Tâ„¢ transient expression system.
CAP-T™ Technology is based on CAP® cells, the stable cell line from CEVEC. The non-tumor origin cells have high expression rates of human proteins and grow in serum-free suspension culture and post-translational modifications are human-like. Process times are reduced by means of large-scale transient transfection.
“After launching our new transient cell in the US market we are delighted to have now our first customers in Europe not only using our stable expression system but also working with our new transiently expressing human cell line. With expression rates outperforming any other human system on the market, e.g. HEK 293 freestyle and others, while offering highest quality human like proteins, we offer our customers a unique state of the art cell line,â€Â Wolfgang Kintzel, CCO of CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH states.
Rainer Lichtenberger, CEO of CEVEC, adds. “Because posttranslational modifications play a significant role for the bioactivity of recombinant proteins it is of crucial importance to produce proteins with human-like glycosylation and sialylation. With our proprietary human cell lines, CAP for permanent producer cells for proteins and the novel CAP-T system, only CEVEC is able to offer a unique range of versatile human cell expression systems to our customers, from early discovery to protein manufacture. This license agreement contributes significantly to CEVECs goal becoming the leading cell line supplier for protein production with human cell expression systems.â€
Link to the news release
About CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH – www.cevec-pharmaceuticals.com
CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH, operational since 2004 was founded by a group of internationally renowned scientists and clinicians from the University of Cologne, Germany. Based on their experience and theirlongstanding collaborative work they had experienced a lack of innovative expression systems formore efficient production of biologics such as recombinant proteins or gene therapy vectors. CEVEC’s novel proprietary human CAP® and CAP-T™ expression systems are ideal for manufacturing complex biopharmaceutical molecules with human glycosylation patterns.
About InVivo BioTech Services GmbH – www.invivo.de
InVivo is a contract manufacturing organization (CMO) dedicated to the development and production of monoclonal antibodies and expression of recombinant proteins. Based in Hennigsdorf, Germany, just outside Berlin, InVivo is an ISO 9001 certified company with over ten years experience in mammalian cell culture and protein production. More than 1100 different hybridomas have been cultivated in InVivo’s proprietary serum-free media ISF1 for high productivity and cost benefits in cultivation and purification. Furthermore InVivo offers the complete range of modern protein expression techniques. Starting from synthetic or amplified cDNA your protein can be stable expressed in bacteria, insect and mammalian cell lines or alternatively transient expressed.
Posted under Collaborations, Events, Industry News, Press Releases | No Comments
Horizon Discovery signs screening agreement with SuperGen Inc.
Last Updated on Friday, 21 August 2009 01:04 Written by Editor Friday, 21 August 2009 01:04
Horizon’s X-MAN (Mutant And Normal) cell-line technology provides the first genetically-defined and patient-relevant in vitro models of human cancer. These models are being used by a growing number of Pharma and Biotech companies to rationalize key steps of the ‘targeted’ drug development process, and thus accelerate and economize the burgeoning field of ‘personalised’ medicine.
The agreement covers the screening of a number of lead compounds on a wide panel of human isogenic cell-lines comprising target genotypes of interest to SuperGen. The approach may enable SuperGen to gather information relating to the selectivity and mode-of-action of their compounds using model in-vitro systems.
“Dr Darrin M Disley, Commercial Director and Chairman of Horizon says “working with SuperGen is an exciting development for Horizon. In this expandable agreement, we hope to further prove the potential of our human X-MAN models in a screening environment; thus facilitating a long and productive relationship with SuperGen.â€
SuperGen will pay Horizon undisclosed fees during the term of the agreement. Work between the parties will begin in July 2009.
About Horizon Discovery
Horizon Discovery is a translational genomics company founded in June 2007 and is headquartered at the Babraham Research Campus, Cambridge, UK and with additional research laboratories in Torino, Italy. Horizon’s goal is to convert new information on the genetic causes of cancer into laboratory models that will facilitate the discovery of drugs that target these defects. Central to this aim is Horizon Discovery’s offering of X-MAN cell-lines, which represent accurate models of defined cancer patient populations and their matched normal genetic backgrounds – a missing link in the rational and efficient development of novel targeted anti-cancer agents.
Source: Cambridge Network
Posted under Business and Investment, Cancer Research, Compound Screening, Europe, Europe, Events, Industry News, Press Releases, USA and Canada | No Comments
BioFocus DPI to apply TET Technology in high-throughput screening campaigns
Last Updated on Sunday, 26 April 2009 05:10 Written by Editor Sunday, 26 April 2009 05:10
Saffron Walden, UK and Heidelberg, Germany; 24 April 2009 – BioFocus DPI, a leading provider of gene-to-candidate discovery services, and TET Systems Holding, a privately-held, German-based biotech company, announced today that they have entered into an agreement to apply TET System’s inducible gene technology in high-throughput screening campaigns performed for BioFocus DPI customers.
BioFocus DPI will offer TET Technology as part of its drug discovery screening service. Through this technology, the activity of individual genes can be controlled quantitatively and reversibly in cellular assays. This approach is particularly powerful in cases where the target is not well tolerated in the cells, since the protein will not be expressed until required for screening.
“The TET Technology allows us to build on the proven compound screening service that we offer clients. This powerful approach will benefit discovery programs that are hindered by difficult to express targets. Using this technology, we will be able to perform more efficient, extensive compound screening on these problematic targets,†commented Dr. Kate Hilyard, VP Biological Sciences, BioFocus DPI.
“We are very pleased to sign this agreement with BioFocus DPI, one of the leading drug discovery service providers worldwide. TET Technology has been used successfully for many years by most of the major pharmaceutical companies. Through this new partnership with BioFocus DPI, a broader range of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies will gain access to TET System’s gene expression technology,†stated Dr. Ernst Boehnlein, CEO of TET Systems Holding and IP Merchandisers.
AEterna Zentaris Presents Two Posters on its PI3K Inhibitor Compound, AEZS-126, at AACR Annual Meeting
Last Updated on Sunday, 26 April 2009 05:09 Written by Editor Sunday, 26 April 2009 05:09
In Vitro and In Vivo Data Show AEZS-126 as Promising Oral Compound for
Future Clinical Development in Cancer
QUEBEC CITY, April 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ – AEterna Zentaris Inc. (TSX: AEZ; NASDAQ: AEZS), a global biopharmaceutical company focused on endocrine therapy and oncology, today presented two posters on AEZS-126, a promising compound for clinical intervention of the PI3K/ Akt pathway in human tumors. The posters were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado.
Poster #3705
Entitled, “AEZS-126, a new orally bioavailable PI3K inhibitor with antitumor effects”, I. Seipelt, S. Baasner, M. Gerlach, M. Teifel, J. Fensterle, L. Blumenstein, G. Mueller and E. Guenther, the poster focuses on ADMET and safety profiling of the compound, as well as in vivo pharmacokinetic experiments and mouse xenograft antitumor studies.
Results
AEZS-126 was identified as a potent inhibitor of class I PI3Ks in biochemical and cellular assays and demonstrated favorable properties in early in vitro ADMET screening including microsomal stability, plasma stability and screening against a large safety profile composed of receptors, enzymes and cardiac ion-channels. During the course of in vivo pharmacokinetic experiments and mouse xenograft antitumor studies, the oral bioavailability in mice was determined to be about 60%, leading to micromolar plasma levels which are well above the nanomolar IC50 values in in vitro studies. Significant antitumor activity was observed at 30mg/kg daily oral administration in Hct116 and A549 models.
Conclusion
These data suggest that AEZS-126 is a promising compound for clinical intervention of the PI3K/Akt pathway in human tumors.
Poster #3706
Entitled, “In vitro profiling of the potent and selective PI3K inhibitor, AEZS-126″, I. Seipelt, M. Gerlach, L. Blumenstein, G. Mueller, M.Teifel, E. Polymeropoulos and E. Guenther, the poster outlines the key in vitro characteristics of this compound that led to its selection for in vivo development.
Results
AEterna Zentaris has identified a new generation of low molecular weight pyridopyrazine compounds as highly potent and selective inhibitors of class I PI3Ks. Presented here, are the key in vitro characteristics of AEZS-126 that led to its selection for in vivo development. AEZS-126 inhibits PI3Ka with an IC50 value of 10nM and proved to be a potent inhibitor of Akt phosphorylation in cellular assays. Mode-of-action studies showed that AEZS-126 acts as an ATP competitive compound. The in vitro antiproliferative activity against different human tumor cell lines (MDA-MB 468, U87, Hct116, PC-3, A549 and others) was determined, with EC50 values in the nanomolar range.
Posted under Biotech & Pharma Law, Collaborations, Events, Press Releases, USA and Canada | No Comments
Discovery of dual function acridones as a new antimalarial chemotype
Last Updated on Sunday, 26 April 2009 05:05 Written by Editor Sunday, 26 April 2009 05:05
Preventing and delaying the emergence of drug resistance is an essential goal of antimalarial drug development. Monotherapy and highly mutable drug targets have each facilitated resistance, and both are undesirable in effective long-term strategies against multi-drug-resistant malaria. Haem remains an immutable and vulnerable target, because it is not parasite-encoded and its detoxification during haemoglobin degradation, critical to parasite survival, can be subverted by drug–haem interaction as in the case of quinolines and many other drugs1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Here we describe a new antimalarial chemotype that combines the haem-targeting character of acridones, together with a chemosensitizing component that counteracts resistance to quinoline antimalarial drugs. Beyond the essential intrinsic characteristics common to deserving candidate antimalarials (high potency in vitro against pan-sensitive and multi-drug-resistant Plasmodium falciparum, efficacy and safety in vivo after oral administration, inexpensive synthesis and favourable physicochemical properties), our initial lead, T3.5 (3-chloro-6-(2-diethylamino-ethoxy)-10-(2-diethylamino-ethyl)-acridone), demonstrates unique synergistic properties. In addition to ‘verapamil-like’ chemosensitization to chloroquine and amodiaquine against quinoline-resistant parasites, T3.5 also results in an apparently mechanistically distinct synergism with quinine and with piperaquine. This synergy, evident in both quinoline-sensitive and quinoline-resistant parasites, has been demonstrated both in vitro and in vivo. In summary, this innovative acridone design merges intrinsic potency and resistance-counteracting functions in one molecule, and represents a new strategy to expand, enhance and sustain effective antimalarial drug combinations.
Posted under Events, Press Releases, USA and Canada | No Comments
New Drug Shows Promise In Treating Drug-resistant Prostate Cancer
Last Updated on Monday, 13 April 2009 10:26 Written by Editor Monday, 13 April 2009 10:26
ScienceDaily (Apr. 11, 2009) — A new therapy for metastatic prostate cancer has shown considerable promise in early clinical trials involving patients whose disease has become resistant to current drugs.
Chemists and biologists at UCLA and colleagues at several other institutions, including Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, have created a new drug to treat a particularly lethal form of the disease, known as castration-resistant prostate cancer, or CRPC. Also referred to as hormone-refractory prostate cancer, CRPC is resistant to further treatment by anti-hormone drugs such as Casodex and Eulexin.
In an article published April 9 in the advanced online edition of the journal Science, the scientists describe the development and testing of two novel compounds, MDV3100 and RD162, which block the androgen receptor (AR) in CRPC cells, and report results from clinical trials in which MDV3100 was found to lower prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels — a marker for tumor growth — in men with CRPC.
The new, small organic molecule MDV3100 was “designed as a very strong antagonist of the androgen receptor to stop the growth of any prostate cancer that requires the AR for propagation, which includes most forms of prostate cancer,” said Michael Jung, UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry and a researcher at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, whose research group synthesized both MDV3100 and RD162.
The biology research was carried out in the UCLA departments of medicine, urology and pharmacology by Charles Sawyers and his research group; Sawyers has since moved to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where he serves as chair of the human oncology and pathogenesis program. The UCLA patents for both compounds were licensed by the pharmaceutical company Medivation Inc., which chose to test MDV3100 in clinical trials.
The drug has successfully completed Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials, and the Food and Drug Administration has agreed to allow Medivation to begin what Jung described as “the pivotal Phase 3 clinical trials.”
The results of clinical studies with MDV3100 were described at the 2009 ASCO Genitourinary Cancer Symposium in February by the trials’ principal investigator, Dr. Howard Scher of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. In general, the drug, at 240 mg once a day, was very effective at lowering PSA levels and also in reducing the number of circulating tumor cells, without any significant toxicity.
“I think it is quite likely that the exciting results seen in the smaller population will also be evident in the larger Phase 3 trial and that the drug could be approved for use in the next few years,” said Jung, who is also a member of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA.
Of 30 men with anti-androgen–resistant prostate cancer who received low doses of MDV3100 in the multisite Phase 1/2 trial designed to evaluate safety, 22 showed a sustained decline in PSA levels, an indication that their cancer was responding favorably to the drug. This trial is still underway, and results from a total of 140 patients receiving higher doses of the drug will be reported within the next year, Sawyer said.
The Phase 3 clinical trial will evaluate the drug’s effect on survival in a large group of patients with metastatic prostate cancer.
MDV3100 and RD162 are second-generation anti-androgen therapies that prevent male hormones from stimulating the growth of prostate cancer cells. These new compounds appear to work well even in prostate cells that have a heightened sensitivity to hormones; that heightened sensitivity makes prostate cancer cells resistant to existing anti-androgen therapies.
Approximately 186,000 new cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed each year in the United States. The male hormones testosterone and dihydrotestosterone, which are also known as androgens, spur the growth of prostate cells, and drugs that block the receptors for these hormones are the most common treatment for the disease in its advanced, metastatic stage. Anti-androgen drugs, such as bicalutamide (Casodex), suppress the growth of cancer cells temporarily, but in most patients, the cancer ultimately develops resistance to drugs. Approximately 29,000 men in the United States die each year from the disease.
Prostate cancer becomes resistant to anti-androgen drugs when cancer cells begin to increase production of the androgen receptor, Sawyers said. When the level of androgen receptors on the cells’ surface reaches a certain level, the drugs that originally suppressed the cancer actually begin to stimulate cancer growth.
Because of this backlash effect, many scientists have questioned whether blocking the androgen receptor is a wise course of action. Sawyers and his colleagues, however, believe that blocking the receptor is critical to successful treatment. They set out to design a new generation of drugs that can block the androgen receptor without unwanted side effects, even when levels of the receptor are high.
Researchers in Jung’s and Sawyers’ laboratories based their designs on a drug that tightly attaches to the site on the androgen receptor that binds with testosterone. If that site is blocked, the hormone cannot bind to prostate cells and tell the receptor to stimulate growth. Using this initial drug as a chemical scaffold, the researchers synthesized nearly 200 slightly different versions of the drug. They tested each one in the laboratory on prostate cancer cells that had been engineered to produce high levels of androgen receptor.
This screening yielded MDV3100 and RD162, molecules which tightly bind to the androgen receptor and do not show the cancer-stimulating effect of bicalutamide and other current anti-androgen drugs. The molecules were good candidates for drugs, because they are readily absorbed into the blood when taken orally and they persist in the bloodstream. The researchers tested the new drugs’ effectiveness in mice with tumors derived from drug-resistant prostate cancer cells.
“To our delight, we found that these compounds caused very dramatic shrinkage of tumors in the mice,” Sawyers said. “While treating these animals with bicalutamide produced a modest effect on their tumors, the new drugs caused the tumors to shrink dramatically, and in some animals almost completely.”
Sawyers said the new drugs bind tightly enough to the natural hormone-binding site on androgen receptors to prevent most of them from functioning, even in cells with many androgen receptors.
The promising laboratory studies led Medivation to license the drugs for commercial development.
Medivation has received permission from the FDA for a large Phase 3 clinical trial of MDV3100 on about 1,200 patients with anti-androgen-resistant disease. This study will assess MDV3100′s effect on cancer survival and will take several years.
While the preliminary results are promising, Sawyers said his laboratory will continue to seek further improvements in drug therapy for prostate cancer.
“There were some men in the initial trial in which the drug didn’t work at all, and we want to find out why,” he said. “It may be because the drug is not potent enough to overcome resistance due to androgen receptor over-expression. Or it may be that the cancers in these men are not driven by the androgen receptor anymore. Also, there were men who initially received benefit from the drug but then relapsed, and their PSA levels came back up. We want to understand the mechanism of that relapse and to try to develop drugs that prevent that renewed resistance.”
For years, no treatment was available for CRPC; recently paclitaxel — a strongly cytotoxic drug — was approved.
In addition to Sawyers’ and Jung’s teams, researchers from the Oregon Health and Science University, the University of Washington and Medivation contributed to the research.
This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, the Prostate Cancer Foundation and Medivation and was conducted through the Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium.
Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and TB Alliance Announce Partnership to Develop New Tuberculosis Drugs from Natural Sources
Last Updated on Wednesday, 1 April 2009 12:44 Written by Editor Wednesday, 1 April 2009 12:44
BEIJING & NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Institute of Microbiology (IMCAS), a member institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance), a not-for-profit product development partnership accelerating the discovery and development of new TB drugs, today announced a partnership to discover and develop promising, novel anti-tuberculosis agents from natural sources, including microbial metabolites and traditional Chinese medicines.
A pilot screen conducted by IMCAS identified 24 natural product extracts as having potential anti-tubercular activity. IMCAS and the TB Alliance will collaborate to further test these extracts, purify and identify the active components, and develop those that prove most promising. Additionally, IMCAS and the TB Alliance will work together to investigate traditional Chinese herbal medicines and purified compounds for biological activity against the Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M.tb) organism. Scientists in China have made significant contributions in developing new drugs from natural sources, as exemplified by the identification of Artemisinin, one of the most effective anti-malarial drugs, first isolated from a traditional Chinese medicinal plant. The deficiency in natural product screening directly against M.tb combined with China’s strong track record of successfully developing new drugs from traditional Chinese medicines, suggests such screenings are likely to yield novel active compounds.
Previously, a group of scientists including Professors Lixin Zhang, Deborah Hung and Eric Rubin of IMCAS, Broad Institute and Harvard University, respectively, worked together to investigate underlying mechanisms of M.tb, the bacterium that causes TB, with the intent to develop new TB drugs from natural sources to treat both drug-susceptible and drug-resistant TB. Modern technologies including high-throughput chemical screening, total genome sequencing, and the construction of systematic, comprehensive arrayed bacterial libraries were utilized in this process.
“This partnership reflects China’s increasing commitment to address the deadly TB epidemic, which has had such a devastating effect on so much of the world for so many years,†said Dr. Mel Spigelman, President and CEO, TB Alliance. “Bringing the best science in China together with the expertise of the TB Alliance is an example of the pooling of global resources necessary to save the millions of lives needlessly lost to TB every year.â€
Novel drugs are needed to work against drug-resistant TB, the more deadly and difficult-to-treat form of TB that is on the rise across the globe, including Asia. Drug resistance oftentimes emerges as a result of patients not completing the burdensome regimen currently used to treat drug-susceptible TB. The last class of new TB drugs was developed and approved in the 1960s. While the current treatment regimen for drug-susceptible TB is effective when administered properly, it must be administered over six to nine months. Treatment for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) usually takes a minimum of 18 months and only cures approximately half of those infected. New, faster-acting TB treatments can improve treatment of both drug-sensitive and drug-resistant TB, enhance compliance, lower relapse rates, reduce the growth of drug resistant TB, reduce health care costs and save millions of lives. The partnership between IMCAS and the TB Alliance is a fitting precursor to the three-day ministerial meeting of high MDR-/XDR-TB burden countries beginning tomorrow in Beijing.
“The fight against tuberculosis is a global endeavor. This partnership represents joint efforts by IMCAS and the TB Alliance in the development of new TB drugs from natural resources,†said Prof. Li Huang, Executive Deputy Director-General of the IMCAS. “Natural products have long been an important source of drugs for human medicine. The rich functionality and stereochemistry of natural products is without doubt one of their great strengths, providing both potency and selectivity. Taking advantage of its expertise in the exploitation of microbial resources, IMCAS has recently set up the Drug Discovery Center for Tuberculosis. The aim of the Center, led by Prof. Lixin Zhang, is to develop and deliver novel TB drugs that work quickly and can help prevent the problems of today’s drugs relating to compliance, drug resistance and TB-HIV co-infection.â€
The TB Alliance is leading the development of the most comprehensive portfolio of TB drugs in history, and is accelerating discovery, preclinical and clinical research of known and novel classes of antibiotics to shorten and simplify the treatment of tuberculosis, including MDR- and XDR-TB. The TB Alliance is committed to making all drugs developed by its research partnerships affordable and available to all who need them.
DiscoveryBioMed, Inc. Engaged in Multiple Drug Discovery Projects on Behalf of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Its Office of Technology and Business Development
Last Updated on Wednesday, 1 April 2009 12:43 Written by Editor Wednesday, 1 April 2009 12:43
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. & NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–DiscoveryBioMed, Inc. (DBM) and Mount Sinai School of Medicine (MSSM) have agreed to move forward on multiple “fee for service†contracts in human cell optimization, assay optimization and pilot drug discovery bioassays on behalf of the Mount Sinai Office of Technology and Business Development (OTBD) and MSSM investigators.
“DiscoveryBioMed is very pleased that MSSM has chosen our company and its novel approaches to the drug discovery process to begin work on these initial projects,†said DBM’s CEO Dr. Erik Schwiebert. “We seek to provide access to drug discovery infrastructure at a reasonable cost to academic clients. We also see our academic clients as partners in the process.â€
Experiments have already commenced on assay optimization and pilot drug screening will begin shortly. DiscoveryBioMed has developed several commercial-academic partnerships over its first 15 months of formal operation. DBM’s particular expertise is the development and/or engineering of human cell cultures and lines from normal or diseased tissue that serve as relevant platforms on which to accelerate this drug discovery process. It is the early formative steps of a drug discovery program that are critical, even before the first small molecule is screened.
“As part of this joint effort, DBM is using a particular human cell model that is especially relevant to one of these projects and is building assays around other relevant human cell lines that will serve as the drug discovery platforms,†explained Dr. Eric Seales, DBM’s Chief Laboratory Officer. CEO Dr. Erik Schwiebert explains DBM’s novel core principle in a simple way: “One is going to eventually treat a human with the best discovered lead compounds going forward so why not screen on a human cell background.â€
â€We are pleased to have a partner in DBM who provides us with drug discovery services consistent with our academic needs and capabilities,†said Patrick McGrath, Executive Director of MSSM’s OTBD. “We have been expanding our resources and capabilities in the area of technology development in order to further typical academic early stage technologies to a point that they are more attractive to partners who can translate the technology into products and service that can benefit the public. We anticipate that our partnership with DBM will help us meet this goal by identifying lead compounds against new disease relevant pathways some of which will hopefully lead to new therapeutics. In the absence of these technology development resources academic technologies often are not further developed in a commercial direction and as a result potentially useful products and services go unexplored.â€
Posted under Collaborations, Discoveries, Innovations and Patents, Events, Press Releases, USA and Canada | No Comments
AsisChem and Apredica Announce Strategic Alliance to Combine Complementary Drug Discovery Support Services
Last Updated on Wednesday, 1 April 2009 12:39 Written by Editor Wednesday, 1 April 2009 12:39
Watertown, Mass. (PRWEB) March 30, 2009 — AsisChem, Inc., a custom chemical synthesis and medicinal chemistry services provider, and Apredica, an ADME-Tox contract research laboratory, today announced a strategic alliance to provide drug-discovery support services to biotech, pharmaceutical, and non-profit research organizations around the world. The alliance provides Apredica and AsisChem’s clients immediate and convenient access to both companies’ core services: Apredica’s ADME-Tox services and AsisChem’s powerful, cost-effective small-molecule synthesis and analog library development.
“Our firms excel in our respective areas of expertise” said Grigoriy Rublev, AsisChem’s Chief Executive Officer. “The joint effort establishes an expanded menu of coordinated, complementary, high-value services that drug discovery teams can engage to accelerate drug development, improve cost efficiency, and increase program success rates,” he added.
“The combination of Apredica’s ADME-Tox services and AsisChem’s synthesis and medicinal chemistry capabilities means that now our customers can increase their cycle speeds,” said Katya Tsaioun, Ph.D., President of Apredica. “Direct communication of our ADME-Tox data back to AsisChem’s chemists means that discovery teams can develop their best lead compounds faster and submit their IND applications sooner.”
Chemical Synthesis in Drug Discovery
Organizations that advance their discovery programs beyond the identification of viable screening hits require synthesis and testing of up to hundreds of analogs during the hit-to-lead and lead-optimization stages to identify a viable clinical development candidate. Success often depends on testing a sufficiently large array of carefully selected analogs in an iterative process that is usually constrained by cycle times and budgets. AsisChem relies on its experienced pool of Ph.D.-level chemists and a low-cost infrastructure to deliver high-quality synthetic analogs with lower budgets and shorter timelines than its leading competitors can achieve. “We were able to synthesize more compounds than we expected based on offers from other custom synthesis companies” said Dr. Carlos E. Pedraza, a postdoctoral fellow at the Cleveland Clinic. “This gave us the opportunity to successfully explore more research avenues than we originally thought possible.”
ADME-Tox Profiling in Drug Discovery
Drug discovery and development programs see many drug candidates fail in clinical-trial stages. Many of these failures could have been avoided through the application of early ADME testing and toxicity profiling, which can quickly identify drug candidates with characteristics that would preclude regulatory approval. Early identification of these sure-to-fail candidates saves not only millions of dollars, but also months or years of research time that could have gone towards producing a successful drug candidate. Apredica works closely with clients to provide the data needed to reduce the risk of expensive, later stage failure, to increase the likelihood of drug development program success, and to accelerate the program towards IND. “More than any other CRO I have worked with, Apredica acts as a true collaborative partner and not simply a for-hire service provider. I have on many, many occasions benefited from Apredica’s guidance, help and advice, something I have generally not seen in other CROs” said Dr. Donald Kirsch, Vice President of Drug Discovery at Cambria Pharmaceuticals.
Posted under Collaborations, Events, Industry News, Press Releases, USA and Canada | No Comments
GTCbio Announces its 4th Annual Assay Development and Screening Technologies Conference taking place
Last Updated on Wednesday, 1 April 2009 12:38 Written by Editor Wednesday, 1 April 2009 12:38
The goal of the 4th annual Assay and Screening Technologies Conference is to provide a forum for academics and professionals in the drug discovery industry to stay abreast of exciting new developments in assay technologies while exchanging ideas and developing more efficient approaches to the drug discovery and development process.
[USPRwire, Thu Mar 26 2009] GTCbio Announces its 4th Annual Assay Development and Screening Conference taking place June 8-9, 2009. As compounds derived from high throughput screening increasingly find their way into clinical trials, drug screening has become widely accepted as a critical step in the drug discovery process. After more than a decade of rapid growth, tremendous progress has been made in assay technology, laboratory automation, and informatics. These technological developments have not only facilitated a drastic increase in throughput and efficiency in drug screening, but have also provided novel solutions in other areas of drug discovery and development. As screening has also become prominent in biological research, screening facilities have become increasingly popular in academic institutions.
As the pharmaceutical industry continues to face the challenges of developing more new chemical entities and reducing the cost of R&D, the demand for novel technologies and creative approaches for improving the efficiency of screening has intensified. Cell-based assays used in compound screening and high-content screening technologies have gained popularity in the industry. Years of intensive research have finally resulted in label-free technologies in the drug screening market place. These technologies provide new ways of interrogating cellular and molecular binding events and enable orthogonal screening approaches to drug targets.
The goal of the 4th annual Assay and Screening Technologies Conference is to provide a forum for academics and professionals in the drug discovery industry to stay abreast of exciting new developments in assay technologies while exchanging ideas and developing more efficient approaches to the drug discovery and development process.
Posted under Business and Investment, Collaborations, Events, Industry News, Press Releases, USA and Canada | No Comments
First auto carbohydrate synthesiser
Last Updated on Tuesday, 24 March 2009 12:24 Written by Editor Tuesday, 24 March 2009 12:24
German researchers have unveiled the first fully automated carbohydrate synthesiser, which they hope will advance development of carbohydrate-based vaccines for the developing world.
The new machine was announced at this week’s meeting of the American Chemical Society in Salt lake City, Utah, and could significantly reduce the amount of time it takes for researchers to build complex carbohydrates for vaccine research. Currently, synthesis of multiple carbohydrates for screening causes a bottle neck in efforts to discover new carbohydrate-based vaccines.
‘A chemical synthesis of a single carbohydrate typically takes months to years,’ explains Peter Seeberger from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam. His team has now revealed a next generation synthesiser, building on an earlier partially automated model announced in 2001, that Seeberger says is ‘entirely reliable, very fast and can be operated by somebody with no experience of chemistry at all’. And when he says fast, he means fast: ‘we have repeated a synthesis of a carbohydrate that initially took two years in the lab in less than 20 hours.’ He also claims to have fixed protection and deprotection issues, major hurdles in carbohydrate synthesis, that plagued the earlier version of the synthesiser.
The concept of the machine is very simple, solid phase chemistry. The starting point is a polystyrene bead with a single sugar attached and ‘we add to that one sugar at a time like threading beads on a necklace,’ explains Seeberger. ‘The bead’s only role is to stop the sugar from being dissolved, and using this methodology we can build up chains between six and 15 sugars. The addition of each sugar takes about two hours, meaning that in 1.5 to two days we can make pure, useable quantities of carbohydrates.’ In a single run they can make 25-50mg of carbohydrate. Seeberger also claims that the sugar building blocks can be made easily in 50-100g bulk quantities.
Carbohydrates surround every cell in humans, bacteria and viruses and play a crucial role in the body’s immune response to disease-causing viruses and bacteria. They have been used for medicinal purposes before, including in some blockbuster vaccines used to inoculate small children against bacterial diseases, such as meningitis, explains Seeberger. The current vaccines are based on isolated carbohydrates – meaning drug companies have to grow bacteria, harvest the carbohydrates, isolate mixtures of compounds and put them into a carrier protein – and Seeberger is looking to simplify this process by using carbohydrates that can be chemically synthesised and therefore help drive down the cost of these vaccines.
The 2001 version of his machine was used to develop a carbohydrate-based vaccine for malaria, scheduled to enter clinical trials in 2010. Malaria kills two million children a year in the developing world, explains Seeberger, and ‘we have a cost target of under $1 per child’. Using their technique the team now have ‘approximately 15 carbohydrates that are entering different phases of development for potential clinical purposes such as tuberculosis.’
The price is pretty attractive too – according to Seeberger the machine itself will cost somewhere in the region of $25,000 (£17,000), approximately one quarter the price of the analogous peptide synthesiser owned by most labs.
Geert Jan Boons, University of Georgia, Athens, US, an expert in carbohydrate synthesis, says that this technology is ‘very sophisticated and has great potential’. Explaining that there is nothing similar available, he says ‘most complex carbohydrates are made in solution, and any solid phase chemistry that is done uses manual approaches – where you add the reagents one by one yourself.’ Seeberger’s fully automated system handles everything, including cooling and warming of each step as required, he adds. Boons does however say that he is not entirely convinced that the chemistry is yet robust enough to make every type of carbohydrate, but adds that Seeberger does claim to have fixed these issues in research he is yet to publish. ‘I think the biggest hurdle will be when he tries to make a bigger molecule,’ he explains, adding that the separation of the desired product from its isomeric compounds is another hurdle that needs to be overcome.
Thermo Fisher Scientific Accelerates Drug Discovery Process with New Maybridge Quick2LeadT Compound Kits
Last Updated on Thursday, 19 March 2009 01:17 Written by Editor Thursday, 19 March 2009 01:17
TINTAGEL, England, (17 March 2009) – Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world leader in serving science, announced today that it has introduced a novel tool to accelerate hit-to-lead programmes in the drug discovery process. Its Maybridge Quick2Lead™ Compound Kits are designed to save time and money by enabling rapid compound library synthesis around bioactive “hits†emerging from screening assays. The kits are made up of pre-weighed, diverse building block selections, facilitating rapid capture of structure-activity (SAR) data from the closely related structural analogues within the library.
Quick2Lead Compound Kits are available as five functionality-based kits, with each one containing 48 carefully selected compounds. This enables the exploration of a wide area of chemical space to maximise credible SAR data acquisition for the successful conversion of an initial hit into a genuine, optimisable lead. Since these compounds are all pre-weighed, the kits are ready to use by simply adding solvent and transferring straight to a synthesiser.
The five functional groups available include: carboxylic acids, sulfonyl chlorides, amines, anilines and boronic acids. Each of these different functional groups is applicable to a wide range of tried and trusted parallel synthesis methodologies. Furthermore, although each kit taps into the hugely diverse Maybridge collection, they all include compounds from the top levels of the relevant Topliss Tree, thereby ensuring quality and rigour in interaction testing.
Each of the pre-selected compounds is supplied as 0.1mMol in a 5mL vial. This saves time and money at several levels — minimising stock, avoiding disposal and reducing storage footprint. The pre-selection process also avoids the “dead time†that can be experienced whilst waiting for multiple building blocks from internal and external sources. Maybridge Quick2Lead Kits arrive as a complete library, delivered rapidly ex-stock.
“Our aim with the Maybridge product range is to help shorten the discovery process, from screening to scale-up, and the introduction of our Quick2Lead Compound Kits is the latest addition to our broad product portfolio of pharmacophorically relevant compounds and services,†said Dr. Mick Durrant, Director of Business Development for Maybridge products at Thermo Fisher Scientific. “We recognise that identifying, sourcing and weighing building blocks to feed the library production process around an initial hit can be time consuming and expensive. Our new Quick2Lead Kits offer a novel approach to drive these costs down by providing pre-weighed, diverse building block selections which are simply ready-to-go.â€
Posted under Discoveries, Innovations and Patents, Drug Development, Europe, Events, Industry News, Press Releases | No Comments
PerkinElmer Announces Collaboration with Korea’s Sangmyung University for Drug Discovery Research
Last Updated on Thursday, 19 March 2009 01:14 Written by Editor Thursday, 19 March 2009 01:14
WALTHAM, Mass. & CHEONAN, South Korea–(BUSINESS WIRE)–PerkinElmer, Inc., a global leader focused on the health and safety of people and the environment, today announced that it has entered into a drug discovery research collaboration with Sangmyung University (Republic of Korea), based on applying PerkinElmer’s AequoScreen® aequorin assay technology to cutting-edge G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) research.
It is estimated that GPCRs are associated with at least 30% percent of addressable diseases, and continue to be a key focus in drug discovery. Aequorin assays are a sensitive and flexible cell-based assay technology used to detect GPCR activation with several advantages over conventional fluorescence based dyes, including fewer false positives, much simpler protocol and significantly increased assay windows.
AequoScreen will be used by Sangmyung University as part of its efforts to establish an academic GPCR screening facility together with the Korea Chemical Bank, a national repository library of over 100,000 small molecule compounds. The aequorin technology will be used as part of nationwide GPCR screening campaigns and drug discovery programs in Korea.
“We are very pleased to be working with the distinguished faculty of Sangmyung University in providing our AequoScreen technology in support of their Korea-wide GPCR screening campaign implementation,†said Richard M. Eglen, Ph.D., president, Bio-discovery, PerkinElmer, Inc. “Given the wide range of potential drug targets linked to GPCR research, the University’s project presents tremendous promise in terms of advancing potential new drugs.â€
According to Professor Sunghou Lee, Ph.D., of the Department of Biomedical Technology at Sangmyung University, “Screening programs have begun to increase in Korea, partly through the support of institutions such as the Center for Biological Modulators (CBM), the Frontier R&D Program for drug discovery research. For a nationwide academic screening research laboratory such as ours, the ability to reliably and accurately deploy a sensitive, flexible and easy-to-use GPCR detection platform like AequoScreen is of prime importance. This is especially true when dealing with small molecules, where conventional technologies such as fluorescence techniques tend to result in issues such as artifacts and interference that distort results.â€
Professor Lee added, “We are delighted to be working with a partner of PerkinElmer’s caliber in this effort, and look forward to compelling results in our screening program.â€
Posted under Asia, Biotech & Pharma Law, Collaborations, Events, Industry News, Press Releases, USA and Canada | No Comments
New Report Further Demonstrates Ultra-Gloâ„¢ Luciferase is Less Susceptible to Compound Interference
Last Updated on Thursday, 19 March 2009 01:12 Written by Editor Thursday, 19 March 2009 01:12
Research results just published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry demonstrate the superior performance of Promega Ultra-Gloâ„¢ Luciferase. The research, conducted by the NIH Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC), describes Ultra-Glo recombinant luciferase as approximately 90% less susceptible to small molecule inhibition compared to another commercially available luciferase. The NCGC is leading the US government-sponsored efforts aimed at developing biological probes and expanding the use of HTS assays in academic settings.The studies reveal why most screeners prefer Ultra-Glo as the luciferase enzyme formulation in their screening and profiling regimens. Ultra-Glo was derived by directed evolution and is the key component in Kinase-Glo Assay and a suite of other bioluminescent assays for high throughput screening and profiling of small molecule compound libraries.
At the 2007 SBS meeting in Montreal, Dr. Mohammed Kashem from Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, first reported similar findings when he compared Kinase-Glo and a second commercially available ATP-detection luminescent reagent for tolerance to interference by compounds in the BI screening deck. When asked to comment on the NCGC findings, Dr. Kashem replied, “The findings of Auld et al. are consistent with ours (Kashem et al., SBS 2007 Poster #PST1C016) that Kinase-Glo is much less prone to interference from library compounds than PKLight reagent, making it a superior ATP-detection reagent for identifying small-molecule modulators of kinases by HTS”.
Promega Corporation is a leader in providing innovative solutions and technical support to the life sciences industry. The company’s 2,000 products enable scientists worldwide to advance their knowledge in genomics, proteomics, cellular analysis, molecular diagnostics and human identification. Founded in 1978, the company is headquartered in Madison, WI, USA with branches in 14 countries and over 50 global distributors
Posted under Events, Industry News, Press Releases, USA and Canada | No Comments
BIO-Europe Spring 2009 Presenter and Exhibitor Profiles
Last Updated on Friday, 13 March 2009 01:34 Written by Editor Friday, 13 March 2009 01:34
Company: Addex Pharmaceuticals Ticker Symbol & Exchange: ADXN Media Contact: Chris Maggos Phone:41 22 884 15 11
E-mail: chris.maggos@addexpharma.com Web: www.addexpharma.com Addex Pharmaceuticals discovers and develops allosteric modulators for human health. Allosteric modulators are a different kind of orally available small molecule therapeutic agent, which we believe will offer patients better results than classical drugs. The lead product in our pipeline, ADX10059, has achieved clinical proof of concept and is in Phase IIb testing for the treatment of GERD (e.g. heartburn) and, separately, migraine headache. ADX10059 is a first-in-class mGluR5 inhibitor, a therapeutic strategy that also is being pursued for multiple indications by large pharma competitors. ADX10059 is not yet partnered but we have established drug development deals with Merck & Co., Inc. (2 deals: schizophrenia & Parkinson's) and Ortho McNeil Pharmaceuticals, a J&J company (anxiety/schizophrenia). Roche Ventures and SR One (GlaxoSmithKline's VC investing unit) have invested in Addex. Company: Allon Therapeutics Inc. Ticker Symbol & Exchange: TSX:NPC Media Contact: Aaron Keay, Director, Investor Relations Phone:
Posted under Collaborations, Europe, Events, Industry News, Press Releases, USA and Canada | No Comments
EPIX Pharmaceuticals Achieves Milestone from Collaboration with Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Therapeutics
Last Updated on Friday, 13 March 2009 01:31 Written by Editor Friday, 13 March 2009 01:31
LEXINGTON, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Mar 11, 2009 – EPIX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:EPIX), a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing novel therapeutics through the use of its proprietary and highly efficient in silico drug discovery platform, today announced that it has achieved another milestone in its collaboration with Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Therapeutics, Inc. (CFFT), the nonprofit affiliate of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Under the terms of the collaboration EPIX has earned an additional $500,000, bringing the total amount of milestone payments achieved under this collaboration to $5 million. The milestone payment is part of a research, development and commercialization agreement between EPIX and CFFT that focuses on discovering potential drug therapies targeting the Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane conductance Regulator (CFTR) ion channel. Under the terms of the agreement, EPIX will own all worldwide rights to any compound that results from the collaboration.To earn the milestone, EPIX successfully completed in silico high throughput screening at four distinct sites in the delta F508 mutational form of CFTR for small molecules that may correct the defects in the mutation’s cellular processing and chloride channel gating. The delta F508 is the most common mutation of the key protein associated with cystic fibrosis. EPIX and CFFT believe that ligands to CFTR may act as molecular chaperones, stabilizing the folded structure and modulating CFTR activity.
“We continue to make progress in our collaboration with CFFT and believe that our research may eventually lead to significant advances in the treatment of cystic fibrosis,†said Elkan Gamzu, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of EPIX. “This achievement, coupled with our announcement in September 2008 regarding the identification of dual-acting compounds that act as both potentiators and correctors, moves us one important step closer to lead optimization and the identification of clinical candidates.â€
Early in the collaboration, EPIX became the first company to generate a 3-D model of the CFTR, a considerable step forward in the CF research field. All of these milestones resulted from EPIX’s highly efficient discovery platform which integrates proprietary in silico modeling techniques with hypothesis-driven approaches for the design and synthesis of compounds.
“Our collaboration with EPIX continues to yield important scientific advances in the field of cystic fibrosis research,†added Robert J. Beall, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. “This is the first time that a 3-D model has been used to test for compounds that may bind to multiple sites on the CFTR and play a key role in a future treatment for CF. We are pleased with the tangible results stemming from our relationship with EPIX and we look forward to continuing our work together as we focus on our goal of creating new therapies to treat CF.â€
Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a life-threatening genetic disease that affects approximately 30,000 children and adults in the United States and nearly 70,000 people worldwide. It causes life-threatening lung infections and serious digestive complications. A mutation in the CFTR gene is one of the key factors that ultimately leads to the symptoms, complications and premature mortality in people with CF.
Posted under Biotech & Pharma Law, Collaborations, Events, Industry News, News by Region, North America, Press Releases, USA and Canada | No Comments
10-K: ALEXZA PHARMACEUTICALS INC.
Last Updated on Friday, 13 March 2009 01:29 Written by Editor Friday, 13 March 2009 01:29
he following Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations contains forward-looking statements that are based upon current expectations. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expect,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “intend,” “potential” or “continue” or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results and the timing of events could differ materially from those discussed in our forward-looking statements as a result of many factors, including those set forth under “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Posted under Biotech & Pharma Law, Collaborations, Events, North America, Press Releases, USA and Canada | No Comments