The Dish’s Weekly Biotechnology News Wrap Up – April 22, 2016

This week’s biotechnology news headlines include, long term survival rates double for melanoma patients getting immunotherapy, BioMarin shares hemophilia A Gene Therapy trial data, Roche may win approval for its cancer immunotherapy this year, Sanofi’s dengue fever vaccine gets WHO recommendation, you’ve been washing your hands wrong according to new study, FDA approves Afatinibfor squamous cell lung cancer, and Purolite and Repligen enter supply agreement.

Cell Culture Events

Webinars:

Bioprocess Insights Webinar Series:

Vaccine Manufacturing with Single-Use Technology: An Evaluation of Process Economy

Wed, May 4, 2016 – Time:11:00 AM EDT – Duration:30 minutes

Dr. Mats Lundgren will share his insights on how to improve process economy and enhance end-product quality through the implementation of single-use technologies and novel microcarrier formats.
Register Now.

Unlocking the Potential for Efficiency in Downstream Bioprocesses

Wed, May 18, 2016 – Time:11:00 AM EDT – Duration:30 minutes

Madhu Raghunathan will walk you through several innovative strategies for achieving increased efficiency in buffer handling, chromatography unit operations, and downstream processing in general.
Register Now.

Single-Use Technology and Sustainability: Quantifying the Environmental Impact

Wed, June 1, 2016 – Time:11:00 AM EDT – Duration:30 minutes

Bill Flanagan will talk about sustainability and how this relates to single-use technologies in biomanufacturing operations. He will present new data on the implications of a single-use strategy from a sustainability perspective.
Register Now.

Conferences:

April

PEGS Boston – April 25-29, 2016 – Seaport World Trade Center – Boston, MA

http://www.pegsummit.com/

Interphex – April 26-28, 2016 Javits Center, New York City

http://www.interphex.com/

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

http://convention.bio.org/

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 Therapeuticshttp://www.ibclifesciences.com/Bioconjugates/overview.xml

Next Generation Protein Therapeutics Summithttp://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

“Long-term survival rates double for melanoma patients getting immunotherapy,” The Washington Post

“More than a third of advanced-melanoma patients who received one of the new immunotherapy drugs in an early trial were alive five years after starting treatment — double the survival rate typical of the disease, according to a new study.”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Airway Modeling using Advanced 3D Systems for Epithelial Cell Culture

“With BioMarin Data, Gene Therapy Finally Shows Impact on Hemophilia A,” Xconomy

“It’s too early to call it a breakthrough, but for the first time, a Gene Therapy has been shown to have a real impact on patients with hemophilia A, the most common form of the chronic blood disease. The early data, which come with plenty of caveats, were reported today by BioMarin (NASDAQ: BMRN), of San Rafael, CA.”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Gene Therapy Strengthened by Recent Successes

“Roche Sees Its First Cancer Immunotherapy Winning U.S. Nod Soon,” Bloomberg

“Roche Holding AG said its most advanced experimental drug to harness the immune system in the fight against cancer may win U.S. regulatory approval this year, becoming the first such treatment to help the roughly 430,000 people diagnosed annually with bladder cancer.”

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

“Sanofi’s Dengvaxia gets a boost from WHO recommendation,” Fierce Pharma

“Sanofi’s Dengvaxia has gotten a welcome boost. Even as the first endemic nation began a large-scale vaccination campaign utilizing the dengue fever vaccine, the WHO has endorsed the shot for use in countries where the virus is more than 50% prevalent.”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “2015 FDA New Drug Approvals – 13 Biologics Receive Approval

“You’ve Been Washing Your Hands Wrong,” The New York Times

“You’ve probably been cleaning your hands all wrong. They must be filthy. Scientists have found that a common technique for applying hand sanitizer, one that is even recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is inferior to an alternative method with twice as many steps.”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Cool Tool – Producing 3D Tissue Models of the Airway Epithelium with PneumaCult™”

“FDA Approves Afatinib for Squamous Cell Lung Cancer,” OncLive

“The FDA has approved afatinib (Gilotrif) for the treatment of patients with advanced squamous cell non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) following progression on platinum-based chemotherapy, according to Boehringer Ingelheim, the manufacturer of the irreversible EGFR inhibitor.”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Cool Tools – BrainPhys™: A New Way to Culture Neurons

“Purolite secures long term supply agreement for Protein A with Repligen and launches a high capacity alkaline stable Protein A agarose resin,” Informa Biopharm

“Purolite Life Sciences has announced it has secured a long-term supply agreement with Repligen Corporation (NASDAQ:RGEN) for the manufacture of Protein-A ligands. These ligands are a critical component of the high-flow agarose-based Protein A chromatography range of resins in Purolite’s Praesto™ portfolio.”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Enabling High Density Cell Banking using a Single-Use, Closed-System

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