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Company News: Scil Technology Appoints Christian Nafe to Chief Executive Officer

Scil Technology GmbH, a biopharmaceutical company having its core expertise in protein drug development, formulation and analytics, today announced that Christian Nafe, currently Chief Financial Officer of the company, has been appointed to CEO. He succeeds Dr. Weishui Weiser, who retires after 5 years as Managing Director of Scil Technology. For further information, please click here.

Company News: biocrea Announces Novel Treatment Opportunities for CNS Diseases

– Company has filed US patent on novel, brain-penetrating PDE2 and PDE10 inhibitors –

CNS company biocrea today announced it has filed a patent application covering its brain-penetrating inhibitors of phosphodiesterases. These compounds constitute a new generation of promising drug candidates to address several CNS disorders that are currently lacking effective treatment options. biocrea has submitted a patent application to the U.S. Patent Office (USPTO) covering compounds and uses of its proprietary PDE2 and PDE10 inhibitors.

While the inhibitors of PDE10 show excellent potential for the treatment of schizophrenia, Huntington’s disease and Tourette’s syndrome, the PDE2 inhibitors cover a whole spectrum of new biological activities and treatment opportunities. Moreover, biocrea’s brain-penetrating PDE2 inhibitors show promise for the treatment of drug-induced movement disorders.

biocrea’s patent application also comprises dual inhibitors of PDE2 and PDE10 as the combination of both modes of action in one molecule results in synergistic biological effects.

So far, validating the benefit of brain PDE inhibitors in CNS diseases has been difficult because access to brain PDEs is limited by the so-called “blood brain barrier” (BBB). The team of biocrea has overcome these limitations and developed brain-penetrating, highly specific PDE inhibitors that constitute a new generation of promising drug candidates for the treatment of CNS disorders. The most advanced compound of biocrea’s novel family of PDE inhibitors, a brain-penetrating, selective PDE2 inhibitor, has been selected to enter pre-clinical development.

Food for Thought: Weekly Wrap-Up

Matthew Herper of Forbes this week takes up the issue whether a DNA sequencer can get FDA approval and quotes Jay Flatley, president and CEO of Illumina as saying the company is in talks with FDA to get regulatory clearance to use its technology for medical diagnostics. He also writes about the late Adriana Jenkins, who worked for Celgene and Third Rock Ventures, among others, and died of breast cancer earlier this month. Having been treated as one of the first patients with one of the first personalized drugs, Herceptin, which gave her a decade of life, she calls for a new law that would give drug companies extended monopolies for developing personalized medicines. Her  own last article explaining her plea for supporting personalized medicine by a legislation similar to the Orphan Drug Act  is featured in Forbes, too.

Also in Forbes, Robert Langreth explains  why Novo Nordisk decided to abandon development of diabetes pills and to ramp up insulin production instead – a move highly successful so far.

Dealing with green energy, the Economist reports on the latest efforts to develop artificial leaves for the synthesis of carbohydrate fuels directly from sunlight, carbon dioxide and water. The article features efforts by the Joint Centre for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP) in California, Massachusetts-based Sun Catalyx and a group at Massey University in New Zealand lead by Wayne Campbell.
For those of us who already are short-sighted and need reading glasses on top, the New York Times has good news about a new gadget that already hit the US market. Anne Eisenberg reports that with the new device the days of bifocal spectacles may be over soon. The new emPower electronic spectacles have liquid crystals inserted at the bottom of the lens which change refraction by simply touching the frame. As a result, reading power can be easily switched on and off.

Hannah Waters in The Scientist features a new pathway that may be used to develop novel antibiotics, e.g. to combat Staphylococcus infections.  The trick is done by blocking RNA degradation via a small molecule inhibiting the enzyme RNAse P found in gram-positive bacteria. This leads to accumulation of RNA transcripts and their encoded proteins so that the bugs die from chaos.

In Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), Jörg Altwegg reports about a baby that opened up a fierce ethical debate in France. The boy was conceived after preimplantation diagnosis made clear that he not only did not carry beta thalassemia but that he also was suited as a blood donor for his older sister suffering from the disease. Another ethical debate around human genetics is taken up by  Volker Stollorz in a Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS) article not yet online. In the US, researchers have developed a universal gene test able to uncover the genes for hundreds of severe, rare genetic diseases. The test is going to be used for family planning, and couples at risk of conceiving a child with one of those conditions can opt to perform preimplantation diagnosis. However, while some human geneticists warn that the results might overstrain the expertise of human genetic councelors, others already are crazy about using such tests to eliminate all recessive alleles for genetic diseases from the human gene pool.

Finally, Alison McCook in The Scientist claims researchers are punks, because just like in punk music, as they are typified “by a passionate adherence to individualism, creativity and freedom of expression with no regard to established opinions.” To get a taste, she recommends listening to Minor Threat and Nomeansno for a start.

Company News: Provecs Medical Signs Vaccine Collaboration with Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine

Hamburg-based immunotherapeutics company Provecs Medical this week announced the signing of a collaboration with the prestigious German Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNI). The partners will design and evaluate novel vaccine candidates based on Provecs Medical’s technology platform. Indications are four undisclosed infectious diseases, three of them transmitted by insects.

Provecs Medical uses a proprietary adenoviral vector technology to achieve the targeted expression of multiple signaling molecules relevant for the immune system in the microenvironment of a disease site. Please click here for further information.

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