Obesity, defined as having a BMI of 30 or greater, and type 2 diabetes are likely to be the greatest public health problems of the next decade. Type 2 diabetes has reached pandemic proportions, and the risk of developing the disease has increased up to ten times in people who are obese.
31 July, 2009
Victoza®, the first once-daily human glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analogue that regulates blood sugar in a glucose-dependent manner, is now available for people with type 2 diabetes in the UK.
31 July, 2009
Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT) has introduced the novel peptide-based double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) transduction delivery system Transductin™.
30 July, 2009
Debiopharm Group and MSM Protein Technologies have announced the signature of an exclusive agreement for the development and commercialization of Debio 0929, an antibody targeting a G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) to be developed into a new oncology therapeutic drug.
30 July, 2009
Axel Ullrich, PhD, director of the Department of Molecular Biology at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Germany, whose discoveries have led to novel cancer therapies including Herceptin® (trastuzumab), has been announced as the winner of the 2009 Dr Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research.
30 July, 2009
The FDA is notifying the public about new safety information concerning products marketed for body building and increasing muscle mass. The FDA has sent a warning letter to a manufacturer of body building supplements that claim to contain steroid-like ingredients but in fact contain synthetic steroids.
29 July, 2009
MorphoSys and the University of Melbourne have recently announced an agreement to cooperate on investigating new therapeutic applications for MorphoSys’s MOR103 program.
29 July, 2009
Vantia Therapeutics has announced positive results from a Phase IIa clinical trial of its lead development compound, VA106483, for nocturia. The trial showed that oral VA106483 was successful in producing a predictable and sustained anti-diuretic effect in patients, as determined by increased osmolality and decreased urine output.
29 July, 2009
The biotechnology medicine Ilaris® (canakinumab) has been recommended for approval in the European Union to treat patients with the life-long and potentially fatal auto-inflammatory disease cryopyrin-associated periodic syndrome.
28 July, 2009
Amgen and GlaxoSmithKline recently announced a collaboration in which the companies will share commercialization of Amgen’s monoclonal antibody denosumab for postmenopausal osteoporosis in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Mexico once the product is approved in these countries.
28 July, 2009
Roche and Google.org have recently started a joint project to demonstrate the feasibility of developing a multidisciplinary surveillance, research and response system. This system will enhance the ability to predict and prevent emerging infectious diseases in East Africa.
28 July, 2009
Scientists have developed a new drug that can reduce the growth of tumours in mice by up to 98 per cent, according to a study published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics recently.
27 July, 2009
Cancer Research Technology, Merck Serono, Cancer Research UK, Cardiff University and The Institute of Cancer Research are set to begin a new research collaboration that will provide substantial investment in research on the WNT signalling pathway in the hope of finding new drug targets.
27 July, 2009
Cancer Research Technology and The Institute of Cancer Research have recently announced a major research collaboration with AstraZeneca. The three partners will combine their expertise to discover and develop potential new anti-cancer drugs to target molecular ‘chaperones’ that support the growth of cancer cells.
27 July, 2009
Prostate cancer has overtaken lung cancer to become the most common cancer in men, affecting more than 35,000 men every year in the UK. Now, new UK research has confirmed that the cancer drug abiraterone provides a significant benefit for up to two-thirds of men with advanced and aggressive prostate cancer, according to a study published recently in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
27 July, 2009
Domainex today announced a collaboration on new exciting drug discovery programmes with the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre and The Institute of Cancer Research to identify and develop inhibitors of two recently validated breast cancer targets, tankyrase and IKK-epsilon.
27 July, 2009
Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research and The Royal Marsden Hospital, working with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, have completed a Phase I clinical trial demonstrating the promise of a new type of cancer treatment.
27 July, 2009
PerkinElmer, Inc. recently announced the winners of two industry awards for exceptional achievements in capillary chromatography. PerkinElmer presented the Marcel Golay Award to Barry L. Karger, PhD, of Northeastern University for his work in narrow-diameter liquid chromatography (LC) and the Leslie Ettre Award to W. Christopher Siegler of the University of Washington for his work in three-dimensional gas chromatography (GC).
27 July, 2009
The pharmaceutical sector is set to get its own body dedicated to identifying and addressing key skills issues.
23 July, 2009
Ontario is joining forces with Pfizer Inc. and leading Ontario research institutions to develop a new generation of drugs to fight colorectal cancer.
23 July, 2009
Systemic lupus erythematosus is a chronic, life-threatening autoimmune disease. Approximately five million people worldwide suffer from various forms of lupus, including systemic lupus erythematosus, and symptoms can include extreme fatigue, painful and swollen joints, unexplained fever, skin rash, and kidney problems.
23 July, 2009
Researchers studying the nervous control of nematode mating behaviour have produced video footage of a male worm preparing to mate with a hermaphrodite.
22 July, 2009
Understanding the structure of proteins is a vital first step in developing new drugs, but to date, drug development has been slow because owing to their instability, proteins are difficult to work with in lab conditions.
22 July, 2009
Actelion Ltd. has announced the launch of Zavesca® (miglustat), a licensed treatment available for people with Niemann-Pick type C (NP-C) disease, in the UK and Republic of Ireland.
22 July, 2009
Changes in the brain measured with MRI and PET scans, combined with memory tests and detection of risk proteins in body fluids, might lead to earlier and more accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, according to new research reported recently at the Alzheimer’s Association 2009 International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease (ICAD 2009) in Vienna.
21 July, 2009
New data presented recently at the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology (BSACI) annual meeting have demonstrated that a new tablet treatment, Grazax®, is the first tablet treatment to provide sustained disease control in patients with grass pollen rhinoconjunctivitis (hay fever) after the treatment period ended.
21 July, 2009
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative brain disorder that is triggered by death or degeneration of nerve cells in a part of the brain called substantia nigra. This brain region is essential in maintaining normal movement, so when the cells start to die off, patients lose the ability to properly execute and control movements.
21 July, 2009
Ablynx, a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of Nanobodies, has announced recently that it has advanced ALX-0061, a new Nanobody-based therapeutic programme, into preclinical development for the treatment of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
20 July, 2009
Apthera, Inc. announced recently that it had reached an agreement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under a Special Protocol Assessment (SPA) for the planned Phase III clinical trial of Apthera’s lead drug, NeuVax.
20 July, 2009