Drug Discovery and Development

Sanofi and GSK recently announced that they have signed a letter of intent to collaborate on an adjuvanted vaccine for COVID-19 — with a goal of having the vaccine available by the second half of 2021. Sanofi is contributing its S-protein COVID-19 antigen. The company’s recombinant DNA technology produced an exact genetic match to proteins…

Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is a reliable, highly sensitive method for detecting the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19. Although the test can be performed on bench-top instruments capable of analyzing one or a few samples at a time, most RT-PCR tests are conducted by large workstations capable of processing thousands of samples per…

BioSig Technologies (NSDQ:BSGM) announced today that it is beginning a Phase II clinical trial at Mayo Clinic for Vicromax as a treatment for COVID-19. ViralClear Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of BioSig, updated its clinical development program for the Vicromax treatment which is slated to be used in a trial under Dr. Andrew Badley, the professor and chair…

Bausch Health (NYSE:BHC) announced today that it initiated a clinical trial program in Canada to investigate the use of Virazole for treating COVID-19. With today’s announcement, Bausch joins Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) and Care Access Research, which both announced clinical testing of coronavirus therapies last week. Bausch’s Virazole is currently approved in the U.S. and Canada, among other…

Bio-Rad Laboratories (NYSE:BIO) this week said it acquired Celsee for an undisclosed amount. Celsee develops instruments and consumables for the isolation, detection and analysis of single cells. The company’s Genesis System allows scientists to isolate, analyze and interpret cellular behavior and collect cell-based information for improved results in single-cell cytometry, single-cell transcriptomics, single-cell multiomics, rare-cell enrichment…

Miele — a manufacturer of laboratory glassware washers — recently unveiled six new models for North America that the company says offer maximum cleanliness, reliability, consistency and flexibility to meet stringent safety and sanitary demands of productive laboratories. The new models from Miele include a plug and play, 115V under-counter washer (PLW 8505), as well…

SP Scienceware is touting ProCulture, its new workflow-minded product line for cell culture under the company’s Bel-Art and Wilmad-LabGlass brands. ProCulture covers multiple steps of the cell culture process from isolation to harvesting, according to SP Scienceware. Products include an array of shaker flasks, spinner flasks with a unique impeller that increases aeration and eliminates…

Deciphering the key characteristics of the virus that causes COVID-19 and using experiments and computational methods to identify promising drug and vaccine candidates — those are but some of the efforts underway at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, N.Y. The laboratory is also exploring options to help supply medical professionals…

Thermo Fisher Scientific is boasting that scientists no longer need to limit routine trace element analysis workflow productivity. The company has launched a new series of inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) instruments for food and beverage, consumer safety, industrial, environmental and pharmaceutical laboratories. Read the full story on our sister site R&D World. 

Hardly anyone’s R&D  workplace has been spared all the repercussions of the COVID-19 crisis. People are working remotely, staggering their hours in laboratories to avoid too many coworkers, and relying heavily on conference calls and video meetings. Our WTWH Media sister site R&D World spoke to a few industry people to see how they’re coping…

General Electric (NYSE:GE) announced that it completed the sale of its BioPharma business to Danaher (NYSE:DHR) for net proceeds totaling approximately $20 billion. Boston-based GE said in a news release that, under the agreeement, it received a total consideration worth $21.4 billion, with $21 billion in cash along with Danaher’s assumption of certain pension liabilities. After accounting…

While vaccines and pharmaceutical treatments for COVID-19 might be far off, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Colorado are exploring a stopgap measure that could buy time for critically ill patients, according to a release by the two institutions. In a clinical trial being planned for hospitals in Massachusetts and Colorado,…

A Phase 1 clinical trial for an investigational COVID-19 vaccine is underway at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle. The open-label trial plans to enroll 45 healthy adults aged 18 to 55 years over a six week period. The first study participant received the vaccine yesterday. Researchers at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research…

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) said today that its Janssen Pharmaceutical Cos. has forged a partnership with the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) to support coronavirus vaccine development. Janssen and the virology lab led by Dr. Dan Barouch at BIDMC have started preclinical testing of multiple vaccine prospects, with the goal of identifying a COVID-19…

Researchers at the University of Bristol (United Kingdom) are touting their use of virtual reality (VR) as a means to design and develop the next generation of drug treatments. In a published work in the journal PLOS ONE, the researchers explained the use of VR in discovering new drugs by finding molecules that bind to…

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) is offering advanced development support to Hologic (NSDQ:HOLX) for a molecular diagnostic test for coronavirus (COVID-19). Marlborough, Mass.-based Hologic’s test is the first coronavirus product selected for development through ASPR’s biomedical advanced R&D authority streamlined selection process (BARDA), which…

IBM (NYSE:IBM) announced today that it plans to work with medical institutions and practitioners by offering support in the development of drugs to combat the recent coronavirus outbreak. The company said in a news release that it intends to leverage its IBM clinical development (ICD) system to help accelerate the development of key drugs in…

Bayer (ETR:BAYN) announced that it entered into a definitive agreement to transfer some of its small molecule research unit to Nuvisan for an undisclosed amount. The agreement is slated to lay a foundation for Nuvisan to establish the Berlin-based research unit and support Bayer’s focus on the flexibility and productivity of its research & development operating…

The FDA and U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced today that they signed a joint statement to encourage collaboration in support of a robust marketplace for biological products, including the critical adoption of biosimilars and interchangeable products. The two agencies said the statement sets out to address false or misleading promotion about biosimilars within the…

Bayer (ETR:BAYN) announced that it is entering into a collaboration agreement with artificial intelligence drug discovery company Exscientia to identify and optimize novel lead structures for potential drug candidates in treating cardiovascular and oncological diseases. The agreement, announced earlier this month, is slated to see the companies work together on early research projects combining Exscientia’s proprietary…

Verily, Google’s life science’s sister company under Alphabet (NSDQ:GOOGL), has received an FDA 510(k) clearance to include an irregular pulse monitor in its Study Watch wearable. Pharmaceutical industry giants including Novartis, Otsuka, Pfizer and Sanofi formed a strategic alliance with Verily last year to develop patient-centered clinical research programs using Verily’s Project Baseline evidence generation platform…

European specialist investor Global Healthcare Opportunities, also called GHO Capital Partners, recently announced that it has acquired Ardena — a specialist contract development and manufacturing organization focused on early phase drug development. Financial terms of the deal, announced Jan. 9, were not disclosed. Headquartered in Belgium, Ardena assists small-to-mid-sized biopharma companies, with services spanning the…

Redesign Science and OpenEye Scientific announced that they have entered into a strategic partnership to integrate OpenEye’s Orion computational platform into Redesign’s drug-discovery platform. Santa Fe, N.M.-based OpenEye makes “cheminformatics” software for drug discovery, providing a reliable application programming interfaces (API) that customers use to build customizable programs and workflows. Its newly released Orion computational…

Dicerna Pharmaceuticals (NSDQ:DRNA) announced today that it closed a discovery & development agreement with Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO) worth at least $175 million to further development of therapies for treating liver-related cardio-metabolic diseases. The two companies announced the agreement on Nov. 18, 2019, outlining the plan to discover and develop the therapies using Dicerna’s GalXC RNAi platform…

Biotechnology company Triplet Therapeutics announced that it launched earlier this week with $59 million in financing as it develops ways to treat certain types of genetic disorders at their source. The $59 million includes a $49 million Series A financing round led by MPM Capital and Pfizer Ventures U.S. Co-founder Atlas Venture seeded Triplet with…