With Celgene CEO Bob Hugin working through his 15th year at the company, an internal race to spot his eventual successor appears to be in progress, and the Big Biotech's latest round of promotions provides some clues to its future leadership. ...
R&D productivity can be analyzed by looking back over the last few years to see what's actually been accomplished in hard-dollar terms, or by looking forward a few years to try to conjure up peak performance and risk factors for drugs in the pipeline. Both methods leave a lot to be desired, but both offer some crude insights into a multibillion-dollar issue: Is biopharma's R&D strategy...
After months of back and forth with regulators yoked its share price up and down, Sarepta Therapeutics is all-in on its odds of winning FDA approval for its Duchenne muscular dystrophy treatment, putting up $25 million for a manufacturing plant to produce the drug. ...
Rivals Novartis and Boehringer Ingelheim are touting positive results for their combination COPD treatments, duking it out with GlaxoSmithKline for dominance of a market that could reach $14 billion by 2018. ...
Shares of Isis Pharmaceuticals surged 9% this morning as the Carlsbad, CA-based antisense drug developer posted positive outcomes for a head-to-head Phase II study comparing ISIS-FXIRx with Lovenox on thrombosis. The biotech says the top 300 mg dose of its therapy beat out the widely used anticoagulant, lowering the number of blood clots while reducing the number of bleeding incidents. ...
Fruit-fly ovaries were used in a new study to uncover how E-cadherin guides collective cell migration. According to traditional scientific dogma, E-cadherin acts like the mortar between bricks, holding cells together and preventing motility. This research team found the opposite: Cadherin is actually promoting the ability of cells to move and migrate. "It's doing it in three different ways in three...
Chronic pain is known to shorten lifespan, and pain tends to increase with age. But is there a relationship between pain and longevity? Researchers have found that mice lacking the capsaicin pain receptor live around 14 percent longer than other mice, and they retain a more youthful metabolism as well. Receptor blockers could not only relieve pain, but increase lifespan, improve metabolic health and...
Scientists have developed a sophisticated computer modelling simulation to explore how cells of the fruit fly react to changes in the environment. The model shows how cells of the fruit fly communicate with each other during its development. ...
Numerous studies have linked exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) in plastic, receipt paper, toys, and other products with various health problems from poor growth to cancer, and the FDA has been supporting efforts to find and use alternatives. But are these alternatives safer? Researchers have developed new tests that can classify such compounds' activity with great detail and speed. The advance could offer...
A novel pathway by which proteins are actively and specifically shuttled into the nucleus of a cell has been discovered by scientists. The finding captures a precise molecular barcode that flags proteins for such import and describes the biochemical interaction that drives this critically important process. The discovery could help illuminate the molecular dysfunction that underpins a broad array of...
74 percent of HIV-positive children in a study developed resistance to at least one form of drug treatment. The researchers followed almost 450 children enrolled in the Pediatric HIV/AIDS Cohort Study, one of the largest studies of HIV-positive children in the United States. "The problem with drug resistance is that once you develop it, it never goes away," said the principal investigator. "Some patients...
For most people, the urge to eat a meal or snack comes at a few, predictable times during the waking part of the day. But for those with a rare syndrome, hunger comes at unwanted hours, interrupts sleep and causes overeating. "We really never expected that we would be able to decouple the sleep-wake cycle and the eating cycle," says the senior study author. "It opens up a whole lot of future questions...
Sanfilippo A syndrome is a rare genetic lysosomal storage disease inherited from the parents of the patient. Lysosomes are the body's vehicle for breaking down many of its by-products such as proteins, nucleic acids, carbohydrates, lipids and cellular debris. New research advances the knowledge of the structural features of sulfamidase in the context of this illness, and will greatly facilitate the...
An enzyme required for animal survival after birth functions like an umpire, making the tough calls required for a balanced response to signals that determine if cells live or die, researchers have discovered. The finding has established RIPK1's premier role in cell survival as inhibition of apoptosis and necroptosis. The results also demonstrated that other pathways must exist in cells to maintain...
Cholesterol plays a key role in cell mobility and tissue invasion, scientists have concluded. The results of a study prove that the accumulation of LDL cholesterol cells —- the one carried by low-density lipoproteins -— may play a crucial role in promoting cell mobility. On the contrary, high levels of HDL cholesterol —- the one carried by high-density lipoproteins -— may avoid cell propagation. This...
New basic research reveals how the body's cells transport lipid. Defects in the mechanism can lead to serious neurological diseases, liver diseases and involuntary childlessness, and the new knowledge is an important step on the way to understanding and treating these diseases. ...
Bacteria that naturally live in the soil have a vast collection of genes to fight off antibiotics, but they are much less likely to share these genes, a new study has revealed. Drug-resistant bacteria annually sicken 2 million Americans and kill at least 23,000. A driving force behind this growing public health threat is the ability of bacteria to share genes that provide antibiotic resistance. ...
Increasing the effectiveness of certain contrast agents is often used for imaging blood vessels and internal bleeding by associating them with nanoparticles, biomedical researchers report. The contrast agent being used is packaged inside or bonded to the surface of microscopic particles, which can be designed to target certain regions of the body or prolong the agent's activity. ...
Shire is gearing up to file an FDA application for lifitegrast, a dry eye treatment it picked up for $160 million, despite some mixed results in a late-stage trial. ...
Germany's Wilex is emptying its pockets of drug candidates, giving 5 once-promising cancer treatments back to partner UCB as it pares down to stay alive. ...