NEWS UK Prime Minister opens e-Therapeutics’ drug discovery centre
GE Healthcare to acquire Xcellerex Inc
GE Healthcare has agreed to acquire Xcellerex, Inc, a USA- based supplier of manufacturing technologies for the biopharmaceutical industry. GE Healthcare said the acquisition of Xcellerex will allow it to expand range of products and services for the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals such as recombinant proteins, antibodies and vaccines.
Based in Marlborough, Massachusetts, Xcellerex develops and produces turnkey biomanufacturing systems and production-scale bioreactors based around single-use components. Its production-scale single-use bioreactor systems are complementary to
GE Healthcare’s products and range of media for cell culture. Xcellerex employs about 135 people and had revenues of about $50 million in 2011. The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of this year.
Recipharm to manufacture DuoCort product for ViroPharma
Pharmaceutical development and manufacturing organisation Recipharm has been contracted by ViroPharma to complete commercial scale-up manufacture of Plenadren® (hydrocortisone, modified release tablet) used for the treatment of adrenal insufficiency in adults. As part of the contract, ViroPharma is investing in new equipment to increase manufacturing capacity for Plenadren in order to support commercial product launches across Europe.
The new agreement follows the completion of Recipharm’s initial scale-up contract with DuoCort Pharma AB, which was recently acquired by ViroPharma.
The UK Prime Minister, the Right Honourable David Cameron, MP, has opened e-Therapeutics’ new drug discovery centre at Long Hanborough near Oxford, UK. The centre, located in the Prime Minister’s parliamentary constituency, will spearhead e- Therapeutics’ work in network pharmacology, a distinctive approach to the discovery of medicines with potential to produce new and improved treatments for complex diseases such as cancer. This year e-Therapeutics plans to advance four drugs derived from network pharmacology research into clinical trials. These include potential treatments for cancer, major depressive disorder and resistant bacterial
Prime Minister David Cameron and Professor Malcolm Young, CEO of e-Therapeutics, at the opening of e-Therapeutics’ drug discovery centre in Oxford, UK.
infections. Network pharmacology involves the application of network analysis to determine the set of proteins most critical in any disease, and chemical biology to identify molecules capable of targeting that set of proteins. By
addressing the true complexity of disease and by seeking to harness the ability of drugs to influence many different proteins, network pharmacology differs from conventional drug discovery approaches, generally based on targeting a single protein.
Index Ventures, GSK and Janssen launch €150 million life sciences fund
Index Ventures has launched its first fund solely dedicated to making investments in the life sciences sector. The €150 million fund includes investments from several of Index’s largest existing limited partners as well as from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and the venture capital affiliate of the Janssen pharmaceutical companies of Johnson & Johnson.
GSK and Janssen will share their expertise by participating in the scientific advisory board (SAB) of the fund. Index will maintain full decision-making rights to the portfolio companies and the fund rules and procedures will follow previous Index Ventures funds.
The partnership is intended to stimulate promising, early-stage R&D innovation. Index’s
‘asset-centric’ model focuses on investment in companies with just one or two projects, rather than companies with multiple programmes.
The fund will consider
opportunities primarily in Europe but also in the USA, with assets that have first-in-class or best-in-class mechanisms of action and target areas of unmet medical need.
Strem expands biocatalysis offerings with enzymatic flow reactors
Strem Chemicals has added enzymatic flow reactors for biocatalysis applications to its product offering. GoNano Technologies’ Enzymatic Flow Reactor (EFR) provides a platform for enzyme immobilisation in a flow reactor configuration, with each reactor containing 200 permeable catalyst support disks coated with GoNano’s proprietary silica Nanosprings, which have been functionalised for enzyme attachment.
Each 0.25” x 2.5” reactor contains more than 25 sq m of surface area for enzyme immobilisation.
Because the enzyme remains in 8 sp2 Inter-Active March/April 2012
the reactor and does not become mixed with the reactants, it can be reused without subsequent separation from the product. In addition, the reaction product is continuously separated from the enzyme minimising product inhibition.
In a separate development, Strem has added CANdot Quantum Dots to its portfolio of nanomaterials.
Manufactured by the Center for Applied Nanotechnology (CAN), CANdot Quantum Dots are fluorescent nanocrystals covering the visible wavelength range from 500 to 650 nm.
This narrow size distribution gives rise to sharp fluorescence
bands, high quantum yields and high photostability. CANdot Quantum Dots are produced using a continuous flow method to give high batch-to-batch reproducibility and scalability. Strem Chemicals was
established in 1964 as a supplier of high-purity speciality chemicals, including catalysts, ligands, organometallics, metal carbonyls and nanomaterials for research and development and commercial-scale applications. The company also provides custom synthesis, process development and cGMP manufacturing services. For more information visit
www.strem.com.
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