News

Food for Thought: Weekly Wrap-Up

In Forbes, Matthew Herper this week deals with the failure of Bydureon eventide, the once-a-week anti-diabetes shot developed by Eli Lilly and Amylin Pharmaceuticals. In a head-to-head Phase III trial Bydureon was not superior to Victoza, the once-a-day drug by Novo Nordisk, in terms of lowering blood glucose levels. Both are synthetic versions of glucagon-like peptide-1, or GLP-1. In another article, Herper looks at the biotech busts and breakthroughs of Februay, from KV Pharmaceuticals (shares up 400%) to Orexigen (shares down 64%). Herper concludes that the rejection of the Orexigen drug Contrave by FDA – the third rejection of an obesity drug in a row – “killed the obesity drug field.”

Wired this week features a story by John Timmer who describes experiments, in which the introduction of engineered viruses boost memory recall in rats. The improment is brought about by a viral protein kinase, but the exact mechanism ist still not understood.

In Germany, Sascha Karberg in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) revisits the attempts to cure AIDS by removing the gene for the receptor protein CCRS, which serves as the entry door for the AIDS virus, from the T cells of HIV-infected patients . Humans lacking the CCRS gene show natural resistance to the disease. The genetically modified T cells are then reinjected into the patients’ blood stream (see akampioneer, January 17). In a Phase I trial of this approach by Sangamo Biosciences, preliminary results have been encouraging, leading to a significant and durable increase of CD4+ T- cell counts in the patients.

Magnus Heier in Frankfurter Allgemeines Sonntagszeitung (FAS) deals with the ignorance of medical doctors in Germany regarding therapy guidelines and attempts to solve the problem by publishing patient versions of the guidelines in the internet.

Richard Stone in Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) features an epidemic in Bangladesh caused by the Nipah virus, which was discovered only in 1998. The virus is spread by bats via raw palm tree juice, a delicacy for both bats and humans. Christina Berndt, also in SZ,  deals with the replacement of members in Germany’s federal “German Standing Vaccination Committee” (STIKO) responsible for handing out advice on vaccination practices. Berndt claims that some of the newly appointed members are too close to industry because they participate in vaccine studies sponsored by vaccine manufacturers.

In a five-part series, Kai Kupferschmidt in German weekly magazine Die ZEIT deals with synthetic biology, this week introducing companies developing synthetic fuels and novel ways to produce drugs. Surprisingly, the article does not feature a single German synthetic biology company but US companies only.

Food for Thought: Weekly Wrap-Up

Hearts can heal themselves, at least in newborn mice, reports  Sindya N. Bhando in the New York Times. She features a research group that is now trying to identify the genes regulating the process. If the researchers could restart the genetic network in adult animals, science would be a step closer to a better heart disease therapy.

Matthew Herper in Forbes deals with the success of Vertex’s cystic fibrosis drug VX-770 in its 161 patients STRIVE clinical trial. While it works only in a small subset of patients carrying a particular mutation, in this group it improved the patients’ ability to exhale by about 17%. Robert Langreth, also in Forbes, introduces biotech investor Randal J. Kirk who made more than $2 billion from his biotech investments, among others, by selling New River Pharmaceuticals to Shire. Right now, he is about selling his anti-depressant play Clinical Data to Forest Laboratories. Kirk prefers to buy unknown companies at a very low price and stays until a drug gets to the market. His latest interest focuses on synthetic biology, and he runs and finances the 180-person company  Intrexon, founded in 1998 by biologist Thomas Reed. Intrexon claims to command a library of 70,000 DNA pieces that can be used to control gene expression. This enables it, as an example, to induce and regulate in vivo protein expression through dosing of a small molecule activator. Applications range from medical to agricultural and industrial biotechnology and protein production.

Kate McAlpine in New Scientist explains how a technology that manipulates light so that it can deliver sharp images through opaque materials might someday be useful to treat cancer. Like opaque material, human skin scatters light in both time and space, however with the new technology it may be possible to exactly target and destroy cancer cells by laser light without harming surrounding healthy tissue.

Joachim Müller-Jung in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reports on a new technology to improve hygiene in clinics. Developed by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics it generates cold plasma gas that is able to kill bacteria even in skin pores within three to five seconds. The technology already is being used in food processing and for treating chronic wounds. The device is about the size of a hand dryer already used in public lavatories. A license to the technology is still available.

Susanne Kutter in Die Wirtschaftswoche reports on a new test to diagnose a myocardial infarction on the spot. It is based on the enzyme glycogen-phosphorylase BB which is released into the blood stream as soon as the heart muscle is suffering from oxygen deprivation. A common competitor test on the market is based on a molecule released only after disintegration of heart muscles cells and tissue, i.e. hours after the incident. The Diacordon test is marketed by Diagenics.

Company News: bubbles & beyond adds seasoned executives and scientists to it board

bubbles & beyond, a technology company focusing on intelligent fluids, has announced the appointment of several prestigious scientists and executives to its advisory board. The board´s goal is to support the company in the further expansion and commercialization of its product portfolio. Dr. Hubert Bader, Managing Director and Equity Partner of Chemadvice GmbH, Jean-Michel Kennes, previously Head of L’Oréal Germany, and Prof. Dr. Friedrich Kremer of Leipzig University have been appointed to the board, which will be chaired by investor representative Mattias Goetz, General Manager at LBBW Venture Capital.

bubbles & beyond focuses on the development of customized intelligent fluids for industrial, cosmetic, and medical applications. Industrial applications include next-generation cleaning agents for the printing industry, graffity removal and surface protection, or I&I.  Based on its proprietary intelligent fluids™ platform, bubbles & beyond can create phase fluids, which allow for unique physical effects and a stunning performance as well as a broad range of different product types and applications. These solutions are exclusively composed of approved, gentle ingredients, which have been tried and tested for a long time.

Food for Thought: Weekly Wrap-Up

Electronic waste is proliferating at an incredible speed: In 2007, an estimated 40 million computers became obsolete world-wide and the rapid turnover of cell phones, printers, cameras etc. comes on top. A US-solution to the problem is introduced by William Pentland in Forbes this week: EcoATM, a California-based startup, provides self-serve electronic recycling stations, or “ecoATM kiosks” at shopping malls, supermarkets and other high-traffic areas. Consumers can insert cell phones they want to get rid off and immediately get a quote based on the value of the device in secondary markets. The business model is about to be expanded to additional portable devices.

Rainer Floehl in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) explains that to date, leukemia diagnostics does not take important informative parameters into account. A study in about 1,400 patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) led to the development of a risk scale which was subsequently tested in a further 800 patients. The scale comprises factors like patient age, chromosomal changes and body temperature as well as concentration of thrombocytes, hemoglobin fibrinogen and lactate dehydrogenase enzyme. The new scale will allow to stratify patients for aggressive chemotherapy or milder forms of treatment, thereby reducing unnecessary, severe side effects.

Alexander Picker, David Jackson and Stephan Brock in Die ZEIT respond to an article by Martina Keller in the same paper published in January, which dismissed the majority of novel cancer drugs as providing only marginal benefit to the patients while being grossly overpriced and full of severe side-effects. The authors, biologists and managers of Life Biosystems AG (Heidelberg, Germany), a company developing decision support systems for oncologists, point out that judgements like this – frequently found in today’s media – do not take into account the progress which is currently being made with personalized cancer therapies. They state that the diagnostic and analytic advances in this field still have to reach clinics and patients as well as regulatory agencies and insurers.

Malcolm Ritter in Die Welt reports about progress in personalized prostate cancer therapy. To date, a lot of men receive over-therapy such as chemo- and radiotherapy because doctors cannot tell apart aggressive from slowly growing, more benign forms. The article introduces a test developed by Ronald DePinho of Dana Farber Cancer Institute which identifies aggressive forms.

Alexander Wehr in Die Welt reports about a paradigm shift in preventing stroke by using novel anti-coagulants such as apixaban, dabigatran, edoxaban and rivaroxaban instead of warfarin or aspirin. In the same paper, Maria Braun features a study conducted by the University of Toronto showing that bilinguality has a surprisingly high protective effect against Alzheimer’s disease.

Finally, Amy Wallace in the New York Times introduces a start-up still seeking investors that has taught parasitic wasps new tricks. The founders discovered that wasps can be drilled to sniff any volatile substance, even if it is not occurring in the wasps’ natural habitat, and that they are even better in detecting odor traces than dogs. First product of the newly founded company is a device for detecting bedbugs, but the founders think of other applications as well – from sniffing explosives to detecting drugs or cadavers. The company is seeking a modest $200,000 to get the prototype on the market.

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