News

Food for Thought: BioCentury goes TV; Mike Ward leaves

Mike Ward, long-time European Editor of BioCentury, has left the trade publication to take up a new position at Scrip, where he will head a small team that will focus on European companies, funds and regulatory issues. At present, there is no successor at BioCentury.

While the closing of the Oxford office is likely to weaken the position of BioCentury in Europe, the publication will start a policy talk show on Washington’s WUSA channel. The “BioCentury This Week” show will air every Sunday from 8:30-9:00am on Channel 9 in the Washington, DC, area and on Channel 25 Fox Boston. It will be hosted by Eric Pierce, Publisher and Steve Usdin, Senior Editor. The focus is on key issues affecting the science, business and social impact of biotechnology and in particular will feature the perspective of biotechnology policy makers. For a global audience, the show will also be streamed every Sunday from 9:00 am from the new BioCentury This Week website and will be archived thereafter for later viewing.

The first broadcast will deal with risks and benefits of drug safety measures; guests include Robert Temple, FDA’s Deputy Director for Clinical Science, Bill Vaughan, Senior Health Policy Analyst, Consumers Union, Marc Boutin, Executive Vice president and Chief Operating Officer, National Health Council, Tim Coetzee, President and Executive Director of Fast Forward, Affiliate of National MS Society, and Rep. Bart Stupak (Democrats, Mich.), Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s subcommittee on oversight and investigations.

Company News: MediGene Obtains Additional US Patent Protection for EndoTAG-1

September 16, 2010 – MediGene AG (Frankfurt: MDG, Prime Standard) has obtained a patent on the manufacturing process for the drug candidate EndoTAG(TM)-1 from the US patent office. Patent no. 7,794,747 protects the manufacturing process used for EndoTAG-1 as well as the product manufactured by this process. The term of the patent “Method of producing a cationic liposomal preparation comprising a lipophilic compound” will end on January 25, 2024.

More information after the jump

Company News: Okairos Raises €16 Million in Series B Financing

Swiss-Italian vaccine play Okairos today announced the closing of a €16 million series B financing round. The proceeds will be used to further advance Okairos’ product portfolio. The vaccines developed by Okairos are based on new, potent adenovirus vectors that can engage the cellular arms of the immune system to elicit a strong immune response involving T cells. The company is addressing major infectious diseases, e.g. malaria, HIV, hepatitis C and universal influenza. The financing was led by Versant Ventures and joined by the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund. All existing investors – BioMedPartners, LSP and Novartis Venture Funds – also participated in the round. For further information, please visit the company’s website.

Company News: Probiodrug Appoints Kumar Srinivasan as Chief Business Officer

Probiodrug (Halle, Germany) has appointed Dr Kumar Srinivasan, previously Vice President, Global Business Development at Wyeth, to Chief Business Officer. Wyeth was acquired by Pfizer in 2009. Probiodrug has a focus on neurodegenerative diseases, in particular Alzheimer’s disease. In this indication, the company pursues a novel target and pathway and is preparing for the start of clinical development of one of its lead candidates, a small molecule inhibitor of the enzyme glutaminyl cyclase (QC). Kumar Srinivasan, MBA, has a background as research chemist and is an experienced pharma / biotech dealmaker. He will be responsible for Probiodrug’s global business development activities and will be based in Philadelphia, PA. The full press release can be found here.

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