• Ra Pharmaceuticals Launches Protein-Like Drugs

    May 24, 2012, 01:00 AM by Michael Croft
    Xconomy | Ra Pharmaceuticals is announcing its technology platform to develop protein-like molecules that it calls Cyclomimetrics. The technology was licensed from Uppsala University in Sweden, and makes large molecules that can be made into pills. 
    Full story

  • Personalized Genetic Testing Only for 'Clinical Trial Setting'

    May 24, 2012, 01:00 AM by Michael Croft
    CNN | The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released its recommendation this week that personalized genetic tests be only used in a clinical trial setting, saying the tests are not "ready for prime time." 
    Full story

  • Ring My BEL: Selventa Releases Biological Expression Language

    May 23, 2012, 18:00 PM by Michael Croft
    Bio-IT World | With a recent rebranding and evolving business model, Selventa—the company formerly known as Genstruct—has decided to release a key knowledge engineering asset to the scientific community. 
    Full story

  • Big Trial Starting for Genentech's Alzheimer's Drug

    May 23, 2012, 04:00 AM by Michael Croft
    New York Times | Genentech's new Alzheimer's drug trial will test the drug on 200 patients with a genetic mutation for early-onset disease (with half receiving placebo) and another 100 family members without the mutation. 
    Full story

  • Spectra Logic Tape Storage Beefs Up NCSA Blue Waters Supercomputer

    May 22, 2012, 06:00 AM by Michael Croft
    Bio-IT World | The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) has selected T-Finity tape libraries from Boulder, CO-based Spectra Logic to provide hundreds of petabytes of data storage for its upcoming Blue Waters supercomputing system, one of the most powerful supercomputing systems in the world. 
    Full story

  • Building Electronic Clinical Trials is Grueling and Slow—Recent Survey

    May 22, 2012, 01:00 AM by Michael Croft
    eCliniqua | The tedious process of building an electronic clinical trial is a stubborn bottleneck requiring too much time and too many resources. Those are the topline results of a 2011 survey conducted at two annual meetings—the Drug Information Association (DIA) and the Society for Clinical Data Management (SCDM). Cmed Technology, a UK-based provider of eClinical solutions developed and administered the survey, which resulted in 87 respondents from 55 companies.
    Full story

  • Human Genome Exhibition Set to Mark Project’s 10th Anniversary

    May 21, 2012, 12:40 PM by Michael Croft
    Bio-IT World | The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., is planning a “high-tech, high-intensity” museum exhibition next year to mark the 10th anniversary of the official completion of the Human Genome Project, with millions of dollars pledged already by the Life Technologies Foundation, the Brin Wojcicki Foundation, and other donors.   
    Full story

  • California Considers New Genetic Privacy Law

    May 21, 2012, 04:00 AM by Michael Croft
    Scientific American | First there was GINA, now GIPA? The Genetic Information Privacy Act, currently under consideration by California lawmakers, would require an individual's written consent for the collection, analysis, or sharing of any genetic information. 
    Full story

  • Rare Mutations Mean Less Disease Correlation

    May 21, 2012, 00:05 AM by Michael Croft
    Bloomberg | In a paper released last week in Science, researchers at the University of Washington show that most genetic variations in people are rare and evolutionarily recent. The findings further reinforce the changes being made to how we think about correlating genetic changes with diseases. 
    Full story

  • Accelrys Buys Cloud Discovery Platform

    May 21, 2012, 00:05 AM by Michael Croft
    Zacks | Accelrys has bought a Cloud-based drug discovery and development platform from SCYNEXIS, completing the contract both companies entered into last year. 
    Full story

  • Human Genome Sciences Seeks to Fend Off GSK

    May 18, 2012, 01:00 AM by Michael Croft
    New York Times | Human Genome Sciences is still rejecting a bid from GlaxoSmithKline to buy the biotech. Human Genome Sciences' board voted unanimously to reject the GSK offer and adopt a shareholders' rights plan, or poison pill. 
    Full story

  • Driving Innovation from Within

    May 17, 2012, 03:00 AM by Michael Croft
    2012 Bio-IT World Best Practices Winner | “It’s survival of the fittest,” explains Ulrich Betz, department head of Merck Serono’s Innovation & Entrepreneurship Incubator, of Merck’s innospire program, winner of the 2012 Bio-IT World Best Practices award for Knowledge Management. Only the best ideas win. 
    Full story

  • Pfizer's Lung Cancer Drug Targets ALK Gene

    May 17, 2012, 02:00 AM by Michael Croft
    Wall Street Journal | Pfizer's new lung cancer drug is showing effectiveness against childhood cancers with defects in the ALK gene. 
    Full story

  • BGI Installs Roche System for Long Reads

    May 16, 2012, 03:00 AM by Michael Croft
    Bio-IT World | BGI has garnered a lot of attention for its sheer sequencing capacity. Now the sequencing center has installed a new Roche GS FLX+ System at its Shenzhen facility to enhance BGI's long read sequencing capabilities and supplement the short read technologies.
    Full story

  • GSK Buys Proteomics Company

    May 16, 2012, 02:05 AM by Michael Croft
    Fox Business | GlaxoSmithKline has purchased the remaining percentage of Cellzome for about $98 million in cash. 
    Full story

  • The Goals of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences

    May 16, 2012, 02:00 AM by Michael Croft
    Forbes | Last year NIH set up the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences to overcome bottlenecks and accelerate the development of diagnostics and therapeutics. Recently, the Center's mandate has been further expanded. 
    Full story

  • 454, SoftGenetics Enter Promotion Agreement

    May 15, 2012, 04:00 AM by Michael Croft
    Bio-IT World | 454 Life Sciences and SoftGenetics have entered into a co-promotion agreement designed to provide users of 454 Sequencing Systems the broad range of next-generation sequencing data analysis options provided by SoftGenetics NextGENe software.
    Full story

  • Pitfalls Aplenty for Observational Research

    May 14, 2012, 01:00 AM by Michael Croft
    Bio-IT World | Limitations on the use of observational data in comparative effectiveness research (CER) were among the themes of a Post-Approval Summit held in early May at Harvard Medical School*. The march toward bigger and often mandatory post-approval studies needs to be rooted in “strong science,” enabled by industry partnerships with large health care delivery organizations, insurers, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and academia, according to keynote speaker Michael Rosenblatt, executive vice president and chief medical officer at Merck. 
    Full story

  • Best Practices: Bringing the Trial to the Patient

    May 11, 2012, 01:15 AM by Michael Croft
    2012 Bio-IT World Best Practices Winner | Almost a year ago, Pfizer started recruiting for a different kind of clinical trial: the first ever conducted under a Participatory Patient-Centered (PPC) model. Last month, the team’s efforts—still very much ongoing—were rewarded with a Bio-IT World Best Practices Award in the Clinical and Health IT category. 
    Full story

  • Drug Timing Affects Efficacy

    May 11, 2012, 01:00 AM by Michael Croft
    MIT News | Researchers at MIT and Dana Farber have shown that staggering cancer drugs produces better results--in very specific ways. The results were published in Cell today. 
    Full story