RD

In February, Novo Holdings announced one of the largest M&A deals in recent memory with its plans to acquire Catalent, a leading contract drug manufacturer, for a cool $16.5 billion. The deal could accelerate production of Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster diabetes and weight-loss medications, Ozempic and Wegovy, given skyrocketing demand. But while the Novo-Catalent deal marks…

While annual reports show broadly similar R&D strategies among Merck & Co., Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and AbbVie, their 2020–2023 financial metrics reveal a concerning trend. Merck & Co. may be the new top dog of Big Pharma, but the firm’s 1.4% revenue growth in 2023 represents a significant slowdown. Pfizer’s 41.7% revenue decline from…

By Mark Jones It looks innocuous in my hand, yet there are growing calls to ban it. It may use technology created for the Manhattan Project, but, in my hand, it doesn’t feel like a weapon. It feels natural, in spite of the very unnatural materials it may contain. I’m not at all cautious as…

With top-notch universities, federal research institutes, leading companies from nine major industry sectors, and 14 top-ranked hospital systems, Ohio is a “quiet giant” of innovation in industrial sectors and life science. Ohio has the fifth-highest number of Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies — and is home to more than 120 NYSE/Nasdaq companies with a…

If 2020 underscored the importance of the pharma industry’s social importance, 2021 demonstrated the ability of R&D spenders to yield profitable commercialized products.  But while strong demand for COVID-19 therapies in 2021 provided unprecedented revenue levels for a handful of Big Pharma companies, it didn’t result in substantial changes in R&D spending. (Look out for more insights…

Midatech Pharma (Nasdaq:MTP) announced today that it extended its R&D collaboration with Johnson & Johnson’s (NYSE:JNJ) Janssen Pharmaceuticals. Cardiff, United Kingdom-based Midatech, a drug delivery technology company focused on the biodelivery and biodistribution of medicines, initially entered into the R&D collaboration with Janssen on July 21, 2020. Get the full story at our sister site, Drug Delivery Business News.

Automata (London) announced today that it has raised $50 million in Series B funding to support its automation systems for life science research. Octopus Ventures led the round, with participation from returning investors Hummingbird, Latitude Ventures, ABB Technology Ventures and Isomer Capital, and strategic investors such as In-Q-Tel. Company officials plan to use the money…

BD (NYSE:BDX) touted a study on innovation in flow cytometry that featured as the cover story of the journal Science. Franklin Lakes, New Jersey-based BD’s study was conducted in collaboration with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL). It evaluated BD’s flow cytometry efforts that add fluorescence imaging and image-based decision-making to sort individual cells at high…

A life sciences real estate developer announced today that BD (NYSE:BDX) selected its property as a new facility for its biosciences business. Through a joint venture with Tishman Speyer and Bellco Capital, Breakthrough Properties confirmed that BD chose its Torrey View by Breakthrough property for an expanded San Diego reagent innovation center within its biosciences segment. Get…

Bruker (NSDQ:BRKR) announced today that it acquired Molecubes, a maker of benchtop preclinical nuclear molecular imaging (NMI) systems. Ghent, Belgium-based Bruker said in a news release that the acquisition, for which financial terms were not disclosed, will strengthen its position as a leading NMI solutions provider in preclinical and translational imaging research. The acquisitions will…

Flow cytometry is a powerful technology given its ability to analyze the physical and chemical properties of cells and particles. But many laboratories struggle to find space for advanced flow cytometry cell analyzers. BD (NYSE:BDX) has responded to that challenge with its benchtop FACSymphony A1 cell analyzer. BD designed the fluorescence-activated cell analyzer to support…

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) announced today that it has launched the J&J Centers for Global Health Discovery, a global network of research partnerships to address the world’s health challenges. The first J&J Satellite Center for Global Health Discovery is at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. The pharma and medtech giant plans to…

Global investment firm Francisco Partners announced today that it has agreed to acquire Abbott’s STARLIMS informatics product suite for an undisclosed amount. Companies in the life sciences, pharma and biotech, chemical and refining, food and beverage, manufacturing, environmental, public health and forensics sectors have used the STARLIMS suite of products for more than 35 years.…

President Joe Biden’s administration will spend $3 billion in American Rescue Plan money to accelerate the discovery, development and manufacturing of antiviral medicines against COVID-19, HHS announced today. Not only will the Antiviral Program for Pandemics seek to boost the availability of medicines to prevent serious COVID-19 illness and save lives, but it will pursue sustainable…

COVID-19 disrupted oncology clinical trials. More than a year into the pandemic, drug developers and regulators, including FDA, are also looking for ways to catalyze clinical trial innovation with AI and other tech. The FDA has been “vigilant as they always are to make sure that there is strong science, but they are much more…

The investigational drug Tempol from Adamis Pharmaceuticals Corp. (NSDQ:ADMP) could be a potent oral antiviral treatment for COVID-19 based on cell culture research, according to scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  The positive research news caused Adamis Pharmaceuticals’ stock to jump 61% from $0.69 to $1.13 today. The quick jump in its stock valuation triggered…

The pharmaceutical industry is on the upswing and is poised to have a compound annual growth rate of 13.7% from 2020 to 2027, according to projections from Grand View Research. The industry’s resurgence is a good opportunity for employees in the sector, who frequently enjoy comfortable salaries. To get a sense of which pharmaceutical companies…

The Mayo Clinic is roughly tripling the size of the new research lab it plans to build in its home city of Rochester, Minn. Before the COVID-19 hit, plans called for a four-story building. But officials at the top-tier health provider say the pandemic taught them that scientific advancements need to accelerate in healthcare. The…

The pandemic has heightened interest in COVID-19 therapies, sometimes stealing attention from other pharmaceutical breakthroughs. But the pandemic has also served as a reminder that investment in new drugs can pay dividends while leading to a greater societal appreciation for the industry. A 2019 study published in International Health concluded that pharmaceuticals that have launched…

The past year has been an unprecedented time for the pharmaceutical industry. On the one hand, the pandemic resulted in substantial delays to clinical trials while also forcing sponsors to rethink clinical trial design to protect participants. But on the other hand, the pandemic underscored the importance of the pharma industry in society.  While the…

Critical reagents are instrumental to large molecule drug development. They constitute a key element in the bioanalytical assay for the quantitative determination of the test compound. Companies often find it challenging to produce and manage lots of consistent quality, even though such consistency governs the accuracy, precision and robustness of the assay. Critical reagents and…

Life sciences software company Insightful Science (Bishop’s Stortford, U.K.) recently announced that it has acquired Dotmatics (San Diego) and its cloud-based scientific R&D data management platform. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Integrating Insightful Science’s software applications into Dotmatics cloud-first enterprise data management service will enable an end-to-end scientific research platform, the…

Emulate has debuted what it terms a “colon intestine chip” targeted at pharma and biotech companies, academics and other researchers. The company believes the system will accelerate the identification of drug candidates to treat inflammatory damage in the colon. The technology could be a boon for understanding inflammatory bowel disease, which approximately 1.6 million people in…

MIT researchers are touting a new machine-learning technique called DeepBAR that can quickly calculate the binding affinities between drug candidates and their targets. DeepBAR produces precise calculations in a fraction of the time compared to conventional techniques, according to the researchers. They think the software could potentially accelerate drug discovery and protein engineering. “Our method…

For all of its promise in healthcare and elsewhere, deploying artificial intelligence is frequently a challenging endeavor. “Close collaboration between data science teams, other project team members and stakeholders is essential,” said Jennifer Bradford, director of data science at Phastar, the London-headquartered contract research organization. While input from computational, statistical or medical experts could be…