Bio Saga Blog - A Chronicle of Life Sciences & Informatics

Global drugmakers GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Sanofi-Aventis, Novartis AG and U.S.-based Johnson & Johnson have submitted concrete bids to acquire majority stake in the Indian unlisted firm Paras Pharmaceuticals, the Business Standard reported on Tuesday. The initial bids were much lower at around $600-$700 million, from the earlier expected valuation of close to $1 billion, the newspaper reported citing unidentified sources. "While more serious players such as Japan's Taisho Pharmaceutical are expected to join the race, domestic FMCG majors like Emami and Dabur are unlikely to place a bid for the company," the paper quoted a source as saying. Do you want to know more?

- GSK becomes first company to freely share chemical structures on 13,500 molecules from its compound library - Alliances formed with leading scientific research communities from private industry and public-domain data provider courtesy CDD Blog GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) had teamed up with leading public-domain data providers European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) and the US-based informatics service provider Collaborative Drug Discovery (CDD) to make freely available key scientific information on more than 13,500 compounds that could ultimately lead to new treatments for malaria. The release of this data marks the first time that a pharmaceutical company has made available the structures of so many compounds and is made possible through the collaboration of the web hosts and their specialist research tools, which will be available at no cost to researchers. The information, which is hosted on websites regularly used by researchers, incl...

GlaxoSmithKline Plc will buy a stake in Austria’s Intercell AG in a move that analysts said underscores drugmakers’ growing interest in vaccines. Glaxo will pay 33.6 million euros ($49.5 million) as part of the alliance to develop and market Intercell’s needle-free, patch-based immunizations for traveler’s diarrhea and pandemic influenza. The London-based drugmaker also will buy as much as 5 percent of Intercell for up to 84 million euros via a staggered shareholding option, the companies said in a statement today. XTractor Premium - A Platform for discovery , knowledge sharing, analysis and modelling of published biomedical facts. The only Knowledgebase which provides "manually" annotated facts from PubMed on a weekly basis Innovative Features like Semantic Search , Concept Linking , Bibliographic search , Save, Export and Visualize Only Knowledgebase with daily updations from PubMed XTractor Premium now at an Special Introductory Offer. Subscribe now and save! Re...

Mutations in the protein tyrosine kinase gene ERBB4 contribute to — and may provide hints about treating — a subset of melanoma, according to a paper by researchers from the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins University that appeared in the advanced, online edition of Nature Genetics this week. The team sequenced protein tyrosine kinase or PTK genes in 29 individuals with melanoma. Their search uncovered dozens of somatic mutations affecting the kinase domain of 19 different PTK genes. When they looked at the same 19 genes in another 79 melanoma patients, the researchers found that almost a fifth of those tested harbored mutations in ERBB4 . And, they reported, knocking down the mutated form of ERBB4 or using a drug that targeted the gene slowed the growth of melanoma cell lines, suggesting it might be useful to evaluate ERBB4 status in melanoma patients. Researchers at the NIH Intramural Sequencing Center sequenced all 86 PTK family genes in tumor samples from 29 ...

Industry response to the H1N1 pandemic suggests that cell culture vaccine production is about to come of age with two firms that use the technique, Novartis and Baxter, claiming it will cut development and manufacturing timelines by months. Margaret Chan officially declared the pandemic explaining that H1N1 infections worldwide can no longer be traced and that “ further spread is considered inevitable .” She asked drugmakers to begin preparing for large-scale H1N1 vaccine production when manufacture of seasonal stocks is completed, prompting a flurry of industry updates from vaccine producers. Baxter and Novartis aim for early availability The most eye-catching of these responses came from US drugmaker Baxter which announced it has completed testing of its Celvapan H1N1 vaccine and is “ now in full-scale production ,” and is working to deliver it as early as next month. Traditionally, seasonal influenza vaccines are mass produced using the albumin found in fertilised hens eggs a...

Indian generics firm Piramal Healthcare says it " has no intention to dilute current ownership levels, " but has not commented on rumours that it is in talks with French firm Sanofi Aventis. Speculation emerged last week in an article where it was claimed that Sanofi was willing to pay a premium for a “ significant stake ” in Piramal and had already completed a due diligence review of the deal. In response, the Indian firm’s share price jumped some 17 per cent when the story broke.When contacted Piramal would not elaborate on the statement but, while most observers view the comments as scotching last week’s rumours, the lack of an outright denial of the Sanofi deal and careful choice of words still leave the possibility of an outright sale. While Sanofi would not comment, the $2bn (€1.6bn) price tag that emerged on earlier speculation that GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) was interested in Piramal, would fit with recent statements by CEO Christopher Viebacher tha...

British drugs company GlaxoSmithKline is set to announce about 6,000 job losses when it posts results on Thursday, the 'Sunday Telegraph' newspaper said. The cuts by Glaxo, the world's second largest drugs company after U.S. group Pfizer, are part of Chief Executive Andrew Witty's strategy to meet the challenges facing the industry, including increased competition from generic drug makers, the British newspaper said. The company, which employs about 100,000 people including 18,000 in the UK, has failed to get as many new drugs to market as investors hoped when it was created via a merger eight years ago. Witty has tried to shift Glaxo's center of gravity away from blockbuster prescription drugs, like top-seller Advair for asthma, and toward non-prescription consumer healthcare products. A Glaxo spokesman said the company has a restructuring program but he declined to comment on specific job cuts. Rival AstraZeneca announced 6,000 job losses on Thursday after posting...

GlaxoSmithKline has inked a five year, $25 million collaboration deal with the Disease Institute of Boston to conduct on immunoinflammation research. GSK and IDI researchers will develop joint grant proposals in targeted areas of research under an Alliance Research grant program. GSK gets first dibs on any drug targets identified through the collaboration. "GSK is committed to becoming a world leader within 3 years in drug discovery of immuno-inflammation," said Jose Carlos Gutierrez-Ramos, head of the Immuno-Inflammation Center of Excellence for Drug Discovery of GSK. "This agreement fits perfectly with our strategy to pursue scientific excellence and technologies both internally and externally." Do you want to know more?