The Dish’s Weekly Biotechnology News Wrap Up – April 15, 2015
This week’s biotechnology news headlines include, clinical trials need more subjects, Medivation said to have rebuffed Sanofi takeover bid, Juno Therapeutics and WuXi AppTec to launch new biotech company, Sean Parker of Facebook and Napster to Start Cancer Immunotherapy Effort, Astra Zeneca and VentiRx partner on ovarian cancer vaccine trial, Allergan is partnering with heptares in Neurological Drug Alliance, and Boehringer’s Giotuf beats AstraZeneca’s Iressa in lung cancer trial.
Cell Culture Events
Webinars:
Bioprocess Insights Webinar Series:
Upstream – How to Improve Productivity and Process Economy Through Intensified Seed Train Strategies
Wed, Apr 20, 2016 – Time:11:00 AM EDT – Duration:30 minutes
Dr. Andreas Castan will discuss the upstream seed train and will show how a process intensification strategy can be used to compress timelines and decrease the cost for this unit operation.
Register Now.
Conferences:
April
PEGS Boston – April 25-29, 2016 – Seaport World Trade Center – Boston, MA
Interphex – April 26-28, 2016 Javits Center, New York City
May
TIDES – May 9-12, 2016 – Long Beach, CA
http://www.ibclifesciences.com/TIDES/overview.xml
World Stem Cells Regenerative Medicine Conference – May 18-20, 2016 – London, UK http://www.terrapinn.com/conference/stem-cells/index.stm
World Cord Blood Conference – May 18-19, 2016 – London, UK
http://www.terrapinn.com/conference/world-cord-blood-congress-europe/index.stm
World Precision Medicine – May 18-19, 2016 – London, UK
http://www.terrapinn.com/conference/world-precision-medicine-congress/index.stm
ISCT – May 25-28, 2016 – Singapore
http://www.celltherapysociety.org/?page=ISCT2016
Cell Culture World Congress USA – May 19-20, 2016 – Hilton San Diego Resort and Spa – San Diego, CA
http://www.terrapinn.com/conference/cell-culture-world-congress-usa/index.stm
June
BIO International Convention – June 6-9, 2016 – San Francisco, CA
Cell Line Development & Engineering – June 13-15, 2016 – Parc 55 Wyndham San Francisco, CA
http://www.ibclifesciences.com/CellLine/overview.xml
Co-located with
Bioconjugates: From Targets to Therapeutics – http://www.ibclifesciences.com/Bioconjugates/overview.xml
Next Generation Protein Therapeutics Summit – http://www.ibclifesciences.com/ProteinSummit/overview.xml
Annual Meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research – June 22-25, 2016, San Francisco, CA
http://www.isscr.org/home/annual-meeting/san-francisco-2016
Progress in Continuous Biomanufacturing – June 27-28, 2016 – Robinson College, Cambridge, UK
The conference is enhanced by the participation of several leading industrial technologists, scientific, vendors and also leading academics from Europe and USA. They have come forward to share their experience and knowledge to provide a better understanding of the current technologies and their application in continuous biomanufacturing. There is also a plenary lecture by a distinguished professor in the field of bioprocessing, and you will also benefit from access to unpublished data. This meeting will address several advancements and their successful application with data in the Technology both Upstream and downstream and also on Initiatives to process developments and project to the future direction of the industry. By joining with us you can benefit from the current state of-the-art advancements in continuous manufacturing and also learn about the successful organisations that are developing and applying these methods in-house.
http://www.subramanian.org.uk/
Viral Safety and Raw Materials – June 2016, Vienna, Austria
http://www.informa-ls.com/event/empoweredantibodies15
Headlines
“Clinical Trials Need More Subjects,” The Wall Street Journal
“Researchers conduct clinical trials to test new drugs and medical treatments, but the rate at which they are able to recruit and retain patients is at an all-time low.”
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “BPI West 2016 – BioProcess International Conference – In case you missed it!”
“Medivation Said to Have Rebuffed Sanofi Takeover Approach,” Bloomberg
“Medivation Inc. rebuffed a recent takeover approach from French drugmaker Sanofi, which is pursuing the U.S. company to expand its cancer treatment business, according to people familiar with the matter.”
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Cool Tool – A Xeno-free Culture System for hMSC Isolation and Expansion”
“Juno Therapeutics to launch a new biotech company in China,” Puget Sound Business Journal
“Juno Therapeutics is the latest Seattle company to expand in China. In partnership with WuXi AppTec, Juno is forming a new Chinese company called JW Biotechnology Co.”
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Cool Tool – New ACF Medium to Expand and Differentiate Human Hematopoietic Cells into Erythroid Cells”
“Sean Parker, a Facebook and Napster Pioneer, to Start Cancer Immunotherapy Effort,” The New York Times
“Sean Parker was a pioneer in music sharing when he co-founded Napster and in social media as the early president of Facebook. Now he wants to pioneer in a field that is already jumping with activity: cancer immunotherapy”
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “2015 FDA New Drug Approvals – 13 Biologics Receive Approval”
“AstraZeneca and VentiRx team up for PD-L1 vax trial in ovarian cancer,” Fierce Biotech
“AstraZeneca ($AZN) is stepping up its partnership with biotech VentiRx, the Ludwig Cancer Research and the Cancer Research Institute to begin further trials combining its PD-L1 drug with a TLR8 cancer vaccine as the Big Pharma company aims to push on with its cancer immunotherapy.”
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Cool Tool – Producing 3D Tissue Models of the Airway Epithelium with PneumaCult™”
“Allergan Joins Heptares in $3.3B+ Neurological Drug Alliance,” Genetic Engineering News
“Allergan is partnering with Heptares in an up-to-$3.3 billion R&D and commercialization collaboration to develop subtype-selective muscarinic receptor agonists for Alzheimer’s disease and other major neurological disorders.”
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Cool Tools – BrainPhys™: A New Way to Culture Neurons”
“Boehringer’s Giotrif beats AZ’ Iressa in lung cancer trial,” PharmaTimes
“Boehringer Ingelheim’s Giotrif has beaten AstraZeneca’s Iressa on a number of clinical measures investigated in a head-to-head study involving patients with EGFR mutation-positive advanced non-small cell lung cancer.”
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Enabling High Density Cell Banking using a Single-Use, Closed-System”