This week’s biotechnology news headlines include, FDA approves Amgen’s heart failure drug, ReNeuron files for clinical trial on stem Cell Therapy, prescription drug therapy spending rose in 2014, Mesoblast shares rise with Celgene investment, Ebola lessons learned, IBM seeks to transform healthcare, and orphan status for mesothelioma drug.

Cell Culture Events

Webinars:

“A Modern Approach to Mycoplasma Testing,” Wednesday, April 29th, 2015

Time: 15:00 GMT (Greenwich Mean Time)
16:00 CET (Central European Time) 
10:00 EST (Eastern Standard Time) 
07:00 PST (Pacific Standard Time) 

Conferences:

April

• American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting – April 18-22, 2015 –Philadelphia, Pennsylvania http://www.aacr.org/Meetings/Pages/MeetingDetail.aspx?EventItemID=25#.VS6fmWaZE3g

  Attending? Don’t miss:

  Thermo Fisher Scientific at Booth 1501

  Showcasing the latest generation of transfection reagent for cancer cell lines. They are also giving away copies of their latest Cell Culture & Transfection Handbook.

• International Society for Extracellular Vesicles – April 23-26, 2015 –Washington DC – http://www.isevmeeting.org/

  Attending? Don’t miss:

  “From basic research to clinical setting: Adapting methods for EV culturing, enrichment and analysis”

  The aim of this presentation is to provide information on how to optimize experimental conditions for studying cell culture exosomes by a) introducing a Gibco® Exosome-Depleted FBS and b) giving an overview over a direct method for fast, efficient, and selective isolation of exosomes from cell culture supernatant that is compatible with a wide range of downstream applications.

  Thermo Fisher Scientific at Booth #19/20

  Showcasing their new exosome product, Gibco Exosome-Depleted FBS. They will also be have giveaways inlcuding the Gibco Life of Cells Lego Lab.

• Interphex – April 21-23, 2015 – New York, NY – Javits Center – http://www.interphex.com/

May

• TIDES – May 3-6, 2015 – Town and Country Resort, San Diego, CA http://www.ibclifesciences.com/TIDES/overview.xml
• PEGS Boston – May 4-8, 2014 – Seaport World Trade Center – Boston, MA http://www.pegsummit.com/
• Cell Line Development & Engineering – May 18-20, 2015 – 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 and Next Generation Protein Therapeutics Summit – http://www.ibclifesciences.com/ProteinSummit/overview.xml
• 10^th Annual World Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine Conference 2015 – May 20-22, 2015 – Business Design Centre, London, UK Scaling up, commercialization and collaboration for market access.
• Cord Blood World Europe Congress 2015 – May 20-21, 2015 – Business Design Centre, London, UK Build deposits, reduce costs, retain quality, decrease volume and increase utilization.
• ISCT – May 27-30, 2015 – Caesars Palace Hotel, Las Vegas, NV http://www.isct2014.com/
• Cell Culture World Congress USA – http://www.terrapinn.com/conference/cell-culture-world-congress-usa/index.stm Americas Antibody Congress http://www.terrapinn.com/conference/cell-culture-world-congress-usa/C52321.stm World Biosimilar Congress http://www.terrapinn.com/conference/cell-culture-world-congress-usa/C52322.stm Downstream Processing World http://www.terrapinn.com/conference/cell-culture-world-congress-usa/C52323.stm May 27-28, 2014 – Marriott San Diego Mission Valley – San Diego, CA

June

• Empowered Antibodies Congress 2015 – June 17 – 18 2015, Barcelona, Spain http://www.informa-ls.com/event/empoweredantibodies15
• Annual Meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research – June 24-27, 2015, -Stockholm, Sweden http://www.isscr.org/home/annual-meeting/isscr2015
• BIO International Convention – June 15-18, 2014 – Philadelphia, PA http://convention.bio.org/

August

• The Bioprocessing Summit – August 3-7, 2015 – Westin Copley Place – Boston, MA http://www.bioprocessingsummit.com/

 Headlines

“U.S. FDA approves Amgen’s Corlanor heart failure drug,” Reuters

“U.S. health regulators on Wednesday approved Amgen Inc’s Corlanor to treat patients with chronic heart failure, giving the world’s largest biotechnology company its first cardiovascular product.”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “2014 FDA New Drug Approvals – 11 Biologics Receive Approval”

“ReNeuron aiming to take second stem Cell Therapy into clinic,” PMLive

“UK stem cell specialist ReNeuron has filed for approval to start clinical trials of a treatment for the genetic eye disease retinitis pigmentosa (RP) in the US. The company is asking the FDA for approval to carry out a phase I/II trial of its human retinal progenitor cell (hRPC) line at Massachusetts Eye and Ear clinic in Boston, one of the leading centres for the study of retinal diseases.”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Cool Tool – Minimize the Impact of Stress on Pluripotent Stem Cell Health in a Range of Workflows”

“U.S. prescription drug spending rose 13 percent in 2014: IMS report,” Reuters

“U.S. spending on prescription medicines jumped 13 percent to $374 billion in 2014, the biggest percentage increase since 2001, as demand surged for expensive new breakthrough hepatitis C treatments, a report released on Tuesday showed.”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “A New Model for Continuous Processing in Downstream Purification”

“Mesoblast Shares Climb as Celgene Invests $45 Million,” Bloomberg Business

“Mesoblast Ltd. jumped the most in almost a decade in Sydney trading after the developer of stem-cell therapies agreed to sell a minority stake to U.S.-based Celgene Corp. for A$58.5 million ($45 million).”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Materials and Assay Systems Used for 3D Cell Culture”

“Ebola 1 year later, lessons learned,” CNN.com

“Over the last year more than 25,000 people, a population about the size of Key West, Florida, have fought Ebola infections.”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “The Evolution of Vaccine Manufacturing – Past, Current, and Future Trends”

“IBM Announces Deals With Apple, Johnson And Johnson, And Medtronic In Bid To Transform Health Care,” Forbes

“Experts in health care and information technology agree on the future’s biggest opportunity: the creation of a new computational model that will link together all of the massive computers that now hold medical information. The question remains: who will build it, and how?”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Closed Systems in Biomanufacturing Offer A Variety of Benefits”

“US Orphan status for AZ’ mesothelioma drug,” PharmaTimes

“US regulators have awarded AstraZeneca’s cancer immunotherapy tremelimumab Orphan Drug Designation for the treatment of malignant mesothelioma.”

If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Continuous Downstream Processing – A Tool to Address Key Manufacturing Challenges”