The Dish’s Weekly News Wrap Up – May 30, 2014
This week’s headlines include, the best companies in drug research, top selling vaccines in 2013 manufacturers need volunteers for clinical trials, new database searches for new uses for old drugs, gender inbalance in the lab, and Biorestorative Therapies signs deal with Pfizer.
Cell Culture Events
Annual Meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research – June 18-21, 2014, -Vancouver, Canada
Cell Culture Dish will be blogging from this event with daily updates. If you are attending, don’t miss:
Introducing a Novel, Animal Component-Free (ACF) Culture System for Efficient Isolation, Expansion and Cryopreservation of Human MSCs Derived from Bone Marrow and Adipose Tissue
Ravenska Wagey, PhD, Senior Scientist
Friday, June 20th, 8-8:30am
This tutorial will describe MesenCult™-ACF, a novel animal component-free culture system optimized for efficient isolation, expansion and cryopreservation of human MSCs (hMSCs) derived from primary tissues. Clonogenic characteristics, phenotype and long-term expansion of hMSCs under strict ACF culture conditions will be discussed. The application of three robust and versatile differentiation kits to characterize these hMSCs will also be introduced, providing a complete and integrated workflow for efficient isolation, expansion, differentiation and cryopreservation of hMSCs.
Bioconjugates: From Targets to Therapeutics –June 04-06, 2014 · Grand Hyatt Hotel · San Francisco, CA
IBC Life Sciences’ Bioconjugates: From Targets to Therapeutics is taking place June 4-8, 2014 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in San Francisco, CA. Increase your market share with the latest conjugation design and manufacturing science. This event brings together protein engineers with medicinal chemists in an interdisciplinary forum to foster innovation. Download a copy of the brochure today to see what this year’s event has to offer.
Next Generation Protein Therapeutics Summit –June 04-06, 2014 · Grand Hyatt Hotel · San Francisco, CA
IBC Life Sciences’ Next Generation Protein Therapeutics Summit is taking place June 4-8, 2014 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in San Francisco, CA. Cross-fertilize ideas from multiple disciplines and turn promising new molecules into differentiated products. This event attracts world-renowned academics and industry visionaries to share ideas, clinical updates, and best practices. Download a copy of the brochure today to see what this year’s event has to offer.
Protein Aggregation, Oligomerization, Stability & Solubility –June 04-06, 2014 · Grand Hyatt Hotel · San Francisco, CA
IBC Life Sciences’ Protein Aggregation, Stability & Solubility is taking place June 4-8, 2014 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in San Francisco, CA. Reduce protein degradation and safeguard your product’s efficacy with this new scientific meeting dedicated to minimizing protein aggregation from discovery through bioprocessing. Download a copy of the brochure today to see what this year’s event has to offer.
Single-Use Applications for Biophamaceutical Manufacturing – June 09-10, 2014 · Boston Park Plaza Hotel · Boston, MA
http://www.ibclifesciences.com/SingleUse/overview.xml
Antibody Drug Conjugates 2014 – June 17 – 19 2014, Hotel Fira Palace, Barcelona, Spain
At Informa’s Life Sciences Antibody Drug Conjugateswe’ll be providing scientific-led case studies from over 25 of the leading ADC companies including Genentech, Pfizer, Immunogen, Roche, Takeda, Genmab, Spirogen and more. Discover more about the latest clinical studies from the leading pharmaceutical companies and benefit from:
– Essential data on how to best assess and enhance ADC mode of action
– Establish reliable and reproducible ADC preclinical models
– Seamlessly translate ADCs into the clinic through critical data analysis
Simply quoteCQ3515CCD when booking your place.
Recombinant & Bispecific Antibodies 2014 – June 17 – 19 2014, Hotel Fira Palace, Barcelona, Spain
At Recombinant & Bispecific Antibodies event 2014 we’ll be exploring the latest developments and cutting edge technologies in engineered antibodies, including the latest advances in antibody fragments, antibody domains, ADCs and nanobodies with case studies from Affirmed Therapeutics, National Institute of Health and Cresendo Biologics.
The Recombinant & Bispecific Antibodies conference is part of the Empowered Antibodies Congress, collocated with Antibody Drug Conjugates. Join us to hear preclinical and clinical updates, advances in immunology and expert guidance on how to get your product into the clinic.
Simply quoteCQ3514CCD when booking your place.
BIO International Convention – June 23-26, 2014 – San Diego, CA
Informa Life Sciences’ 7th Annual Viral Safety for Biologicals 2014– June 24-25, 2014 – Pullman Hotel, Cologne, Germany
Informa Life Sciences’ 7th Annual Viral Safety for Biologicals 2014 conference will provide you with the latest technological developments and practical strategies to screen and detect new adventitious agents, optimise viral clearance and implement upstream and downstream viral risk mitigation measures to manage and prevent potential contaminations as quickly as possible.
Informa Life Sciences’ 3rd Annual Biopharmaceutical Raw Materials 2014 – June 24-25, 2014 – Hotel Pullman Cologne, Cologne, Germany
Effective raw materials and supply chain quality management is crucial to ensure appropriate material quality and to enhance the safety and consistency of a pharmaceutical product. Informa Life Sciences’ 3rd Annual Biopharmaceutical Raw Materials is Europe’s only dedicated conference focused on optimising raw material and supply chain quality, with 10+ industry experts and first-hand regulatory advice from Paul-Ehrlich-Institut.
Headlines:
“Who’s the Best in Drug Research? 22 Companies Ranked,” Forbes
“Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is fundamentally wrong in the arguments that he is making in his efforts to force Botox-maker Allergan to sell itself to Valeant Pharmceuticals. Merck and Novartis, both regarded as paragons of R&D, are actually laggards. And Pfizer and AstraZeneca, far from sad sacks driven into each others arms by an inability to develop new drugs, are actually average. Those are some of the surprising conclusions reached in a new ranking of the top 22 firms by R&D productivity created by Sector & Sovereign Health and its lead analyst, Richard Evans, a former Roche executive and longtime Wall Street analyst. The ranking is included below.
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Biologics Still on Top in Best Selling Drugs of 2013”
“Drug-Target Database Lets Researchers Match Old Drugs to New Users,” University of Colorado Cancer Center Blog
“There are thousands of drugs that silence many thousands of cancer-causing genetic abnormalities. Some of these drugs are in use now, but many of these drugs are sitting on shelves or could be used beyond the disease for which they were originally approved. Repurposing these drugs depends on matching drugs to targets. A study recently published in the journal Bioinformatics describes a new database and pattern-matching algorithm that allows researchers to evaluate rational drugs and drug combinations, and also recommends a new drug combination to treat drug-resistant non-small cell lung cancer.”
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “10 Things You Should Know About Dry Shippers Before Shipping High Value Biologics”
“Gender Inbalance in the Lab,” The New York Times
“Federal health officials are taking steps to correct a longstanding gender imbalance in laboratory research on potential drug treatments. For the past two decades, federal law has required that women be included in clinical studies funded by the National Institutes of Health in recognition of the fact that drugs often have vastly different effects in men and women. As a result, more than half of the participants in N.I.H.-funded clinical research are women. But there has been no similar requirement to eliminate the sex bias from more basic laboratory research that can lead up to a clinical trial or doom a drug to the discard pile if it seems not to work.”
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “CHO Cell Culture – Ten Tips from the Experts on Expression, Media and Bioprocessing”
“Top 10 Best-Selling Vaccines of 2013,” Fierce Vaccines
“The vaccine market has long been dominated by the Big 3–Sanofi ($SNY), Merck ($MRK) and GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK)–with Pfizer ($PFE) and Novartis ($NVS) trailing the trio on the list of revenue-generators. But things are changing at the top. The “go big or go home” mentality has sent Novartis packing, with the Swiss company selling GSK most of its vaccines unit earlier this year as it made moves to exit the space. Pfizer, on the other hand, is scouting for ways to bulk up, earlier this month listing AstraZeneca’s ($AZN) vaccine assets among the benefits of a potential merger.”
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Highlights from the 14th World Vaccine Congress – A Cell Culture Perspective”
“Cell Culture Media for Fluorescence Imaging,” Genetic Engineering News
“A key challenge with live-cell fluorescenceimaging is the ability to visualize weak fluorescent signals over background without inducing photobleaching or phototoxicity from high excitation light intensities. Most cell culture media contain components that emit significant autofluorescence when excited, thus negatively impacting fluorophore signal-to-noise (S:N) ratios. In turn, researchers are forced to image their cells in balanced salt solutions instead of growth medium, or to use suboptimal microscope settings, both of which lead to poor cell health. Here, we present FluoroBrite™ DMEM, a cell culture media designed specifically for live-cell imaging that, when excited at wavelengths commonly used for FITC/GFP (i.e., ~488 nm), has the optical properties of PBS while still possessing the nutrients required for maintaining long-term cell health during imaging experiments and routine cell culture.
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Learning more about your cells by employing flow cytometry and cell imaging platforms – How to troubleshoot challenges”
“Biorestorative Therapies Signs Research Agreement with Pfizer,” Pharmaceutical Processing
“BioRestorative Therapies has entered into a two-year collaborative research agreement with Pfizer to study human brown adipose tissue and cell lines. Under the terms of the Agreement, BRT and Pfizer will jointly conduct a study titled “ Development and Validation of a Human Brown Adipose Cell Model, ” which will seek to further characterize the identity and metabolic function of these cell lines. BRT has accumulated a large collection of human brown adipose tissue samples, preadipocyte cell lines and immortalized cell lines for use in potentially developing a Cell Therapy product. The results of the research may be used by both companies.”
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Aastrom CEO Discusses How Recent Acquisition Strengthens Current Manufacturing Capability and Clinical Pipeline”
“Manufacturers Seek Badly Needed Volunteers to Test Drugs and Other Therapies,” The Washington Post
“Let’s say you run a drug company that’s developing a promising new therapy for heart disease or brain cancer or hypertension. As most people know, the process of bringing that drug to market takes years and lots of money. The success rate is generally low. And there’s no hope of selling it to the public until it has been thoroughly tested on perhaps thousands of volunteers in a rigorous, randomized clinical trial. But what if you can’t find enough volunteers? This isn’t a theoretical question. The number of people who are appropriate research subjects and willing to spend the time, unpaid, to test new therapies has declined sharply even as trials have become more complex and the Food and Drug Administration, among others, has demanded more data. More than 10 percent of trials in a sample taken in 2011 failed because researchers were unable to recruit even a single test subject.”
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Flexible Facilities for Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing”