This week’s biotechnology news headlines include, Roche’s immunotherapy bladder cancer drug approved, AstraZeneca asthma drug hits goals, Pfizer announces positive data from two Phase III Meningococcal Group B vaccine, WHO says yellow fever in Africa serious concern, University of Pennsylvania and Biogen enter up to$2B Gene Therapy collaboration, Novartis splits drug business into two units, and Agenovir raises $10.6M for CRISPR antiviral research.

Cell Culture Events

Webinars:

Bioprocess Insights Webinar Series:

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:

May

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 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a plenary lecture by a distinguished professor in the field of bioprocessing, and you will also benefit from access to unpublished data.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

“F.D.A. Approves an Immunotherapy Drug for Bladder Cancer,” The New York Times

“The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved a new immunotherapy drug from Roche to treat bladder cancer, a form of cancer for which there have been no significant new medicines in years.”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Generating Recombinant Versions of Human Serum-Derived Proteins – Transferrin and Albumin”

“AstraZeneca asthma drug hits goal, to enter competitive market,” Reuters

“AstraZeneca’s (AZN.L) drive to rebuild its portfolio of new medicines received a boost with positive results for an experimental biotech drug for severe asthma that the company previously flagged as a potential $2 billion-a-year seller.”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Poster: Purpose-designed Protein A resins for Improved Downstream Process and Cost Efficiency in MAb purification”

“Pfizer (PFE) Shows Off TRUMENBA Data from Two Large-Scale Phase III Trials ,” BioSpace

“Pfizer (PFE), headquartered in New York, announced positive results from two Phase III studies of its Trumenba Meningococcal Group B vaccine. One study was in adolescents and the other was in young adults.”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Proving Clonality is a Hot Topic at Informa “Cell Line Development and Engineering” Conference”

“W.H.O. Calls Yellow Fever in Africa ‘Serious Concern’,” The New York Times

“An emergency advisory committee to the World Health Organization called the spread of yellow fever in Africa a serious concern on Thursday and advocated drastically expanding vaccinations to combat it.”

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

“Penn, Biogen Launch $2B Gene Therapy Alliance,” Genetic Engineering News

“Biogen and the University of Pennsylvania said today they are launching up to $2 billion in collaborations aimed at developing gene therapies targeting the eye, skeletal muscle, and central nervous system (CNS).”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Cell Culture and Single Cell Passaging of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells Without the Need for ROCK Inhibitor”

“Novartis splits drugs business into two, pharma chief to leave,” Reuters

“Novartis is splitting its pharmaceuticals division into two business units, one focused on cancer and the second on other drugs, while switching out its current pharma head in the second high-profile management reshuffle this year.”

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

“Celgene backs $10.6M funding round for CRISPR antiviral biotech Agenovir,” Fierce Biotech Research

“The J&J incubated Californian biotech Agenovir has raised $10.6 million in its first Series A funding round as it looks to advance work on the hot ticket science of CRISPR/Cas9 in its antiviral research.”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “The CRISPR/Cas9 System and its Applications”