The Cross-Border Biotech Blog

Biotechnology, Health and Business in Canada, the United States and Worldwide

Monthly Archives: September 2009

This Week in the Twitterverse

Some interesting items you may have missed if you weren’t following the Twitter stream this week: RT: @chrisarsenault Good news always welcomed! RT @markrmcqueen: RBC: Canada unexpectedly adds 27,100 jobs … Expectation was -15,0009:23 AM Sep 4th from TwitterBerry Changing of the guard at Akela Pharma $AKLhttp://bit.ly/3DZvl7 following Nventa mergerhttp://bit.ly/Pbamq6:00 PM Sep 2nd from TweetDeck $50m to [...]

Friday Science Review: September 4, 2009

Potential future therapeutic options… Dabigatran versus Warfarin: Dabigatran (PRADAX®, Boehringer-Ingelheim) was compared with warfarin (a commonly used anti-coagulant) in a large scale study for the treatment of patients with atrial fibrillations.  The trial demonstrated that the group of patients taking the higher dose of Dabigatran had significantly reduced risk of stroke compared to patients on [...]

MDS Selling Its Analytical Technologies Business for $650 million, Intends to Sell Pharma Services Business Next

Yesterday, MDS Inc. (TSX: MDS; NYSE: MDZ) signed an agreement to sell its “analytical technologies” business to Danaher Corporation (NYSE: DHR) for $650 million cash.  Two major shareholders, collectively holding 23%, have signed voting support agreements supporting the sale.  The shareholders meeting is planned for October, with closing later in Q4.  Assets include 1,100 employees operating [...]

$50 million to BDC for Ontario Tech Investments, Will “Collaborate” With Ontario Venture Capital Fund

The Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) is providing $50 million to BDC: $35 million for direct investments in “early-stage firms in Southern Ontario” and $15 million for LP investments in VC funds “focused on Ontario-based opportunities.” Rather than relying [entirely?] on internal BDC resources, “as part of its decision-making process, the BDC [...]

BioMS and Lilly Terminate Dirucotide Agreement

Not surprising, given the failure of the SPMS trial (etc.) in July, but Eli Lilly and BioMS have terminated their license and collaboration agreement, with “all commercial rights to dirucotide … returned to BioMS.”  No indication from the press release where BioMS is headed, just that they’re “completing [their] review of the additional dirucotide clinical data and assessing [...]

New York Times’ Brody Counsels DTC Genomics Caution

An article in yesterday’s New York Times calls direct-to-consumer genetic testing, a trend we are following on this blog, ”fraught with potential dangers.”  Although our original post on the subject discussed many of the regulatory and ethical issues around DTC genomics, Brody’s article raises some interesting additional points: The risk of false reassurance: “a man told he [...]

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