MedImmune and Abpro said today they will partner to develop a preclinical, novel, bispecific antibody targeting angiopoietin-2 and vascular endothelial growth factor (Ang2-VEGF).
Through the collaboration—whose value was not disclosed—several potential therapeutic areas will be explored where inhibition of the Ang2 and VEGF pathways with the bispecific antibody may provide clinical benefit, MedImmune and Abpro said.
The emergence of big data, as well as advancements in data science approaches and technology, is providing pharmaceutical companies with an opportunity to gain novel insights that can enhance and accelerate drug development. It will increasingly help government health agencies, payers, and providers to make decisions about such issues as drug discovery, patient access, and marketing. From our unique vantage points at Genentech, a leading biotechnology company with a major data science practice, and The Data Incubator, a data-science education company that places and trains data scientists, we have seen how the pharmaceuticals industry has leveraged big data for some potentially revolutionary advances and the challenges it has faced along the way.
University of Maryland (UM) Ventures and CoapTech, LLC, announced today that the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) has granted CoapTech exclusive licensing rights for the commercial development of a platform technology called Coaptive Ultrasound. CoapTech will use the technology, initially, to bring to market a medical device allowing non-surgical providers to safely perform feeding tube placement at the bedside through a novel procedure termed PUG (Percutaneous Ultrasound Gastrostomy). PUG is a minimally invasive and more cost-effective method for the placement of permanent gastrostomy (feeding) tubes into stomachs of patients who need long-term nutritional supplementation.
Stephen Moret, the head of LSU’s major fundraising arm and a former key adviser to then-Gov. Bobby Jindal, is leaving Louisiana for Virginia.
Moret has been tapped to lead the embattled Virginia Economic Development Partnership after less than two years leading the private LSU Foundation.
In its third year of mentoring and investing in cybersecurity start-ups in Northern Virginia, state-funded start-up accelerator Mach37 is starting to show it can churn out self-sustaining businesses.
Venture capital has been on a good run over the past few years across a range of sectors; even with recent slowdown relative to 2014-2015, venture-backed investments remain above historic averages. In fact, the first three quarters of 2016 alone are already higher than the annual rate of venture investing in all but two years since 2002.
Quasi-public venture capital firm MassVentures reports that its SBIR Targeted Technologies (START) program has invested $12 million into 50 companies that need more time to commercialize high-risk, high-reward technologies — and those companies have leveraged that state investment to raise an additional $278 million in outside capital.
Becton, Dickinson and Co. (NYSE:BDX) presented their roadmap for the future on their recent analyst day briefing. The presentation laid out ambitious plans that management has set out for the company through to 2019, including targeting top line expansion and double-digit bottom line expansion to be driven by margin improvements. The management has also set out to increase dividends through to 2019, through roughly $11 billion in operating cash flow (OCF) generation.
QIAGEN and CosmosID, a leading genomic big data company, today announced the launch of a metagenomics analysis plugin for the QIAGEN Microbial Genomics Pro Suite and CLC Genomics Workbench. The launch of the Cosmos ID plugin expands QIAGEN’s industry leading platform for NGS bioinformatics and strengthens its role as a provider of Sample to Insight metagenomics solutions.
Seeking to deliver the “final nail in the coffin for HIV,” NIH scientists have kicked off a large clinical trial of a vaccine regimen this week in South Africa.
Under a collaboration that includes GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases started a phase 2b/3 trial of a new vaccine regimen in 5,400 sexually active men and women aged 18 to 35 who don’t have the infection. They’ll receive five injections over a year.
