The Dish’s Weekly News Wrap Up – June 29, 2012
“Measure to Increase FDA Funds Through New Company Fees Goes to Obama,” The Washington Post
A measure that would generate $6 billion in fees over five years for the Food and Drug Administration is headed to President Obama for his signature after passing the Senate on Tuesday, a rare moment of bipartisan cooperation in a divided Congress.
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “The House Passes FDA User Fee Reauthorization Bill; Senate Next”
”Surpreme Court Upholds Obama’s Healthcare Law,” Reuters
The Supreme Court upheld President Barack Obama’s healthcare law on Thursday in an election-year triumph for him and fellow Democrats who championed the most sweeping overhaul since the 1960s of the unwieldy U.S. healthcare system.
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Comments on Biosimilar Guidance Indicate Discontent on Both Sides of the Issues”
University of Louisville researchers hoping to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease have discovered an unlikely potential treatment — stem cells from the human nose.
Videos from a U of L laboratory reveal the promise: One shows a rat with a brain damaged to mimic Parkinson’s continually circling the bottom of a bowl in one direction, unable to do anything else. Another shows a similar rat injected with nasal stem cells moving normally and trying to climb out. The research — which uses an adult patient’s own cells — is outlined in this month’s issue of the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine.
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “New Strategies Key to the Clinical Manufacturing of Stem Cells for Therapeutic Use”
“Drug Pipelines Improving After Years in Doldrums,” Reuters
Drug industry productivity is finally improving after years of research disappointment, as drugmakers shift their focus from mass markets to making medicines for rarer, under-treated diseases. Data from Thomson Reuters published on Tuesday showed more new drugs are reaching the market and that the industry has been enjoying higher success rates in the costly final stage of clinical development.
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Strategies for Enhancing Media to Improve Antibody Production in CHO Cells”
“NeoStem Wins $600K for Stem Cell Therapy Against Radiation Poisoning,” Genetic Engineering News
NeoStem won a two-year, $595,252 research grant from the NIAID to fund evaluation and development of human autologous, pluripotent very small embryonic like (VSEL) stem cells as a potential countermeasure against radiation exposure resulting from nuclear accident or terrorism.
If you like this story, please see our blog titled “Culture and Expansion of Stem Cells in Stirred Suspension Bioreactors Could Provide Key in Large Scale Manufacturing”
“Harvard Bioscience Plays Role in Stem Cell Transplants,” Mass High Tech
Harvard Bioscience, Inc. (Nasdaq: HBIO), a life sciences tools company, says the first two successful stem cells laryngotracheal transplants have been completed in Russia using the company’s specially-designed bioreactor to grow the cells, which were taken from the patients’ bone marrow.
If you like this story, please see our stem cell blog titled “The Arduous Path to the Clinic – Plan Early to Avoid Late Attrition”