Drug Discovery and Development

Following the raising of a $90 million Series C, privately held GenapSys will begin rolling out a line of low cost electronic-based genetic sequencing machines that it says could upend the research and clinical testing industries. CEO Hesaam Esfandyarpour says the Redwood City, Calif.–based company’s Sequencer, a table-top device that carries a price tag that’s…

Owlstone Medical last week announced that it has forged a partnership with Thermo Fisher Scientific‘s (NYSE:TMO) to advance non-invasive breath sampling in disease detection. Through the agreement, both companies will integrate the Thermo Scientific Q Exactive GC Hybrid Quadrupole-Orbitrap MassSpectrometer into Owlstone Medical’s Breath Biopsy platform. The collaboration will hopefully qualify the mass analyzer for…

Mesa Labs this week announced it is acquiring Sweden-based Gyros Protein Technologies for a cash consideration of $180 million. The acquisition is expected to add between $37 million to $40 million in revenue during the first 12 months, according to Mesa Laboratories. The company also adjusted its operating income as a percentage of revenues to…

Sphere Fluidics (Cambridge, U.K.) and Peak Analysis and Automation (Farnborough, U.K.) have launched a new product as they seek to further streamline single-cell analysis in biopharmaceutical workflows. The companies yesterday announced they have integrated Sphere Fluidics’ Cyto-Mine single-cell analysis system with PAA’s automated plate handler, S-LAB. Automated micro-plate handling minimizes hands-on involvement and saves time…

OcuMedic said today that it entered into an exclusive supply agreement and picked up a strategic investment from Gelest for its proprietary drug-eluting soft contact lens of an undisclosed amount. Under the terms of the agreement, Morrisville, Pa.-based Gelest is set to manufacture and supply OcuMedic’s key chemistry components used in the controlled release of…

Intersect ENT (NSDQ:XENT) shares plunged today after the company said it failed to meet the primary endpoint in a study of its Ascend investigational drug-coated sinus balloon. The 70-person, randomized, double-blind trial was designed to compared treatment with Intersect ENT’s DCB when randomized against an uncoated balloon control. The study missed the primary endpoint, frontal sinus…

Insulet (NSDQ:PODD) said today that it won FDA clearance to market its Omnipod Dash alternate controller-enabled (ACE) infusion pump as an integrated insulin pump. The Acton, Mass.-based company received FDA 510(k) clearance for the Omnipod Dash in June 2018 and launched the device earlier this year. The latest indication states that the pump can reliably and…

Like airport security barriers that either clear authorized travelers or block unauthorized travelers and their luggage from accessing central operation areas, the blood-brain-barrier (BBB) tightly controls the transport of essential nutrients and energy metabolites into the brain and staves off unwanted substances circulating in the blood stream. Importantly, it’s highly organized structure of thin blood…

For a drug to intervene in cells or entire organs that are not behaving normally it must first bind to specific protein receptors in the cell membranes. Receptors can change their molecular structure in a multitude of ways during binding – and only the right structure will “unlock” the drug’s therapeutic effect. Now, a new…

Up to 80 percent of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience sleep problems. The source of these problems has been as much of a mystery as the exact causes of ASD, which scientists are still working to unravel. A new study led by a team of neuroscientists at Washington State University has brought scientists…