IXICO and VirtualScopics Announce Operational Alliance
Ixico plc a brain health company, and VirtualScopics, Inc have reached an agreement in principle to enter into an international commercial and operational alliance that will provide the clinical trials industry with global operational capabilities and a full range of therapeutic area and modality expertise.
This is expected to
enhance the ability of both companies to deliver world-class services to pharmaceutical, biotech and academic customers and
collaborators around the globe.
Derek Hill, CEO of Ixico said: “This alliance brings together two highly complementary organisations, each with a strong track record of supplying imaging services and technologies to pharmaceutical companies globally. By combining our resources with those of VirtualScopics, we can enhance our ability to deliver on the largest trials world-wide, across a more diverse range of therapeutic areas.”
Eric Converse, CEO of VirtualScopics added: “The proposed alliance would enable us to access IXICO’s focus on neurology, European location, and complementary technologies, and we believe, allow us to provide more comprehensive and scalable capabilities to our customers.”
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Collaboration to Deliver a Pre-Clinical Liver Pharmaco-Toxicological Testing Assay
Belgian company Promethera Biosciences is partnering with EMD Millipore to provide an improved ready-to-use microfluidic perfusion liver assay designed to perform more robust studies in pre-clinical toxicity and drug metabolism. The project for developing a new product combining the strengths of EMD Millipore’s Pearl microfluidic technology and of Promethera Biosciences H2Screen/H3Screen cells was selected by the Belgian Walloon Region Biocluster (BioWin) and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Centre (MLSC) following a call in April 2013. It will be funded EUR 900K in total for both partners.
“We are very pleased to initiate this collaboration with EMD Millipore and to combine our expertise to develop a ready to use liver based assay. We sincerely thank the Walloon region and the MLSC for funding this innovative project,” said Eric Halioua, Chief Executive Officer of Promethera Biosciences.
“The opportunity to work closely with Promethera over the course of the project speaks to the nature of our organisation, enabling our partners to conduct potentially life-saving research,” said Robert Yates, president
and CEO of EMD Millipore. “We are looking forward to building our relationship and more importantly to the outcomes this partnership has the potential to deliver. A sincere thanks to the MLSC for the opportunity to see what this collaboration can achieve and more importantly the continued support of the Massachusetts Life Sciences industry.”
Promethera Biosciences is a spin-off of the Universite Catholique de Louvain (UCL); founded in 2009 it evolved from the lab of Professor Etienne Sokal, a leading expert in pediatric liver disease and cells. Located in Mont-Saint-Guibert, Promethera Biosciences has raised €34 million in two financial rounds, in capital, grants and loans from the Walloon Region. The main investors are Vesalius Biocapital, Mitsui Global Investment, BI Venture Fund, Shire and SRIW. The company has 46 employees led by an experienced management team.
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Students Help in Search for Missing Malaysian Jet
Geography students at The University of Nottingham
Malaysia Campus (UNMC)
were given a part to play when they joined volunteers across the globe in the recent search for Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370.
Geospatial scientist Dr Tuong-Thuy Vu, whose area of research includes disaster responses and crowd-sourcing, was called upon by the international
organisation DigitalGlobe to
help locate the Boeing 777 using their Earth Observation satellite images and he asked for volunteers amongst the students to help analyse images and data.
BerGenBio to Develop Therapeutics for Drug Resistant Cancers
BerGenBio an oncology biopharmaceutical company has received a NOK 13 million grant from the Research Council of Norway’s User-driven Research based Innovation programme (BIA) to help fund research into novel therapeutics for inhibiting tumour epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), a key driver of metastasis (cancer spread) and a mechanism of drug-resistance.
The focus of the project, titled: “Novel therapeutics inhibiting the EMT/ Axl pathway in aggressive cancers”, is to implement state-of-the-art R&D strategies to identify and develop new drug candidates with the potential to prevent and reverse acquired cancer drug resistance. It is estimated that one in three people die of cancer, 90% of which from tumours that have spread and become resistant to treatment. A number of studies have shown that the Axl receptor kinase is closely linked to drug resistance and drugs that inhibit it could offer a promising potential new treatment option.
Research by BerGenBio in the development of BGB324, the Company’s first-in-class selective Axl kinase inhibitor, has firmly established the concept that inhibition of the Axl/EMT pathway is effective against acquired drug resistant and aggressive cancers and has also identified new approaches to inhibiting EMT. The BIA funding will be used to support development of these new concepts into new, highly innovative drug leads with early preclinical proof-of-concept.
Established in 2006, the BIA programme is one of the largest programmes at the Research Council and is a key partner for Norwegian trade and industry. This broad-based programme supports high-quality R&D projects with good business and socio-economic potential.
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TeraView Finds Success in Africa
Collaboration Could Lead to Potential IBD Treatment
TxCell SA, a biotech developing innovative, personalised cell-based immunotherapies using antigen-specific regulatory T-cells (Ag-Tregs) for chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, and Ferring International Center SA, a private biopharmaceutical with a global franchise in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), have announced the signing of a collaboration, option, development and license agreement potentially worth up to €76 million plus royalties subject to the achievement of milestones.
In the agreement, TxCell has granted Ferring an option to acquire an exclusive worldwide license for the development, manufacture and marketing of TxCell’s lead candidate Ovasave for the treatment of IBD, including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. TxCell will undertake a forthcoming phase IIb study with Ovasave in refractory Crohn’s disease. Ferring will then be responsible for the conduct and funding of further development and commercialisation after the exercise of the option.
Initially, TxCell will receive €3 million for the acquisition of the option by Ferring, of which €1 million was paid upon signature of the agreement, with the remainder thought to be payable depending on the progress of the Ovasave phase IIb trial planned to start in the second half of 2014. TxCell will also be eligible in the future in the event of the exercise of the option
to development, commercial and manufacturing milestones and payments up to a total of €73 million. TxCell will also receive tiered royalties up to double digits on future sales of Ovasave.
“This agreement between TxCell and Ferring is a key milestone for TxCell,” said Damian Marron, CEO, TxCell. “The alliance of TxCell’s personalised cellular immunotherapy technology with Ferring’s renowned expertise in IBD will ensure that TxCell’s lead product, Ovasave, can be developed effectively and marketed globally to the sufferers of refractory Crohn’s disease. The agreement underlines the value of TxCell’s ASTrIA platform and the quality of the work of TxCell’s research, development and manufacturing teams”.
“This agreement reinforces Ferring’s continued commitment to
bringing innovative therapies to patients suffering from gastrointestinal diseases. Ovasave represents an exciting potential addition to our current gastroenterology product portfolio,” said Pascal Danglas, Executive Vice President, Clinical and Product Development and member of the Executive Board of Ferring International Center SA.
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TeraView has secured the sale of its first machine into Africa with an order from the National Research Centre in Egypt. This is the first turn key terahertz unit in Africa and is an increasing sign of the globalisation of its technology, the company said.
“We are obviously pleased with the continued spread of the technology” said CEO Don Arnone. “We now have machines operating in over 33 countries. Users, in industry and academia, are increasingly seeing the potential of the technology and we continue to rise to the challenge of producing equipment that meets their needs.
“Like many, we also believe in the potential of Africa and see this sale as a first step in developing
partnerships that can help this potential be realised..”
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Speaking during the operation Dr Vu said: “Earth Observation satellite platforms play an important role in every aspect of our life. They capture frequent and up to date images everywhere on Earth with the very latest synoptic views, up to 0.5 m resolution, of the Earth surface. In the area of emergency and post-disaster responses it is sometimes the sole data source when accessibility on the ground becomes impossible. As the search for flight MH370 enters its fifth day with ships, aircraft and helicopters, Earth observation satellite platforms have been deployed as another option.”
Dr Tuong-Thuy Vu’s Open-Source Geospatial Development research lab in the School of Geography at UNMC has also contributed to DigitalGlobe’s initiative in response to the Philippines Haiyan typhoon.
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