Vaccine Research
Medicago will participate in an early-stage clinical trial of a vaccine designed for use in the event of an avian pandemic flu outbreak, the Canadian biotechnology company said on Tuesday. News
Inovio Pharmaceuticals has announced the publication of a scientific paper highlighting positive results from Inovio's multi-antigen Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) DNA vaccine in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases. Inovio release
Swiss biotech firm and Merck KGaA spin-off Vaximm AG has announced the closing of a private financing round totaling CHF 7.8 million from new and existing investors. The company plans to use the proceeds of the financing to progress its lead program VXM01 into and through clinical phase I testing. VXM01 is an investigational oral T-cell vaccine that is designed to elicit an immune response against vascular endothelium growth factor receptor-2 (VEGFR-2), a well characterized target for anti-angiogenic intervention. Vaximm release
Vaccine Market
India's seventh largest drugmaker by value Cadila Healthcare Ltd, also known as Zydus Cadila, is betting big on the growing vaccine business, a segment considered to be risky and capital-intensive in the healthcare space. But the potential that it holds against the backdrop of growing demand for preventive care in the world markets is driving Cadila into this strategic move. The company plans to introduce 14 new vaccines into the market in the next four to five years. Report
Cuba has registered in Peru what it claims is the world's first lung cancer vaccine and is registering it in other South American countries. Item
GlaxoSmithKline remains in the hunt for modest acquisitions and other deals that bolster its consumer-product, vaccine and emerging-markets businesses, a top executive said Wednesday. GSK Chief Strategy Officer David Redfern said the U.K. company would look for "bolt-on" deals, not large-scale combinations. "We're not looking for really big transactions," Redfern said in an interview at the J.P. Morgan health-care conference here. "I don't think you're going to see anything too dramatic." Story
Adimmune has announced a plan to invest NT$1.5 billion (U.S.$51.3 million) to set up Asia's largest production facility for biological agents. At a celebratory gathering, company chairman Steve Chan said test productions of biological agents would begin as early as July next year. If all goes well, the company would officially begin mass production in 2013, he said. "Founded in 1965, [Adimmune] is the only cGMP [current good manufacturing practice] manufacturer of human vaccines in Taiwan," Adimmune vice president and spokesperson Simon Kao said. Item
The Ministry of Health on Tuesday allowed the Allama Iqbal Medical College and Jinnah Hospital Complex, Lahore, to manufacture anti-hepatitis vaccine Interferon on clinical trial basis for its second phase on the advice of the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Health. Story
Jenny McCarthy still isn't convinced. The actress still firmly believes that vaccines are to blame for development of autism in children, despite last week's British Medical Journal article about a discredited study linking childhood shots to the developmental disorder. Article