January News Briefs
February 3, 2015 | The latest news and product releases from around the life sciences industry:
Cypher Genomics and Sequenom announced a development agreement for next generation noninvasive prenatal tests (NIPT). Sequenom will use Cypher's genome interpretation technology, Mantis, to advance its analysis of clinically relevant fetal sub-chromosomal variants detected in maternal blood. Sub-chromosomal variants represent more than half of rare chromosomal abnormalities, and are more difficult to detect than the aneuploidies commonly covered by NIPT. Press release
Optibrium and NextMove Software announced an agreement to collaborate on the integration of NextMove Software’s Matsy technology with Optibrium’s StarDrop software suite. The combination of these technologies will help scientists identify novel compounds based on matched molecular series analysis. The Matsy algorithm generates and searches databases of matched molecular series to identify chemical substitutions that are most likely to improve target activity. Matsy will be applied in StarDrop’s Nova module, which automatically generates new compound structures to stimulate the search for optimization strategies related to initial hit or lead compounds. The results of this collaboration will be available in a future version of StarDrop, to be released in 2015. Press release
3Scan closed a Series A fundraising round of $6.7 million. The financing, led by Lux Capital, will support the continued development of 3Scan’s Knife Edge Scanning Microscope (KESM) technology. KESM automatically sections and images tissue samples to create high-resolution outputs, up to a terabyte per cubic centimeter, which are used to render 3D tissue reconstruction models in an interactive format. KESM can be used to perform quantified image analysis of tissues as thin as a submicron. Press release
Blend Therapeutics secured $21 million in new funding. The financing will be used to support the proprietary Pentarin platform, which creates miniaturized biologic drug conjugates encapsulated in nanoparticles, to be developed as cancer therapeutics. Blend also secured a technology license from a private biotechnology company for novel bi-podal biologic targeting ligands. Blend plans to combine targeting ligands with a therapeutic payload through its Pentarin platform. Press release
Oracle introduced Oracle Health Sciences InForm Medication Adherence Insights Cloud Service to track and manage the use of medication during clinical trials. This solution, developed in partnership with Proteus Digital Health, automates data collection and integrates adherence data into an electronic data capture system. It eliminates manual processes for collecting adherence data, such as pill counts and patient questionnaires. Press release
ACD/Labs released their Version 2015 cheminformatics software. Version 2015 builds on the capabilities of the ACD/Spectrus and ACD/Percepta platforms. The ACD/Spectrus Platform makes it easier for organizations to handle unified analytical data from multiple techniques and instruments; the latest release offers new capabilities for chromatographic method development. The ACD/Percepta Platform delivers improvements in the speed of calculation of physicochemical and ADME-Tox properties. Press release
Dassault Systèmes BIOVIA released a new version of Discoverant, Discoverant 5.0. Discoverant is a Process Management Informatics (PMI) application for manufacturing operations used by life sciences companies. The software provides real-time, on-demand data access, analysis and reporting of manufacturing and process development data. New features of Discoverant 5.0 include a new interactive graphical genealogy map, enabling analysis teams to visualize connections between upstream and downstream operations with process outcomes. Product page
