Bio/Pharma News

AstraZeneca’s solid-dose facility in Taizhou, China received ISPE’s FOYA 2015 Overall Winner award.

AstraZeneca will add ZS Pharma’s leading ion-channel candidate to its pipeline.

South Africa’s Biovac Institute, which develops and produces vaccines for the country, launched a public-private partnership with Pfizer to enable local manufacturing of Prevenar 13, a vaccine against pneumonia-causing bacteria.

At least 70 patents for Humira will protect the legacy product from biosimilar competitors, according to information presented during the company’s third-quarter earnings call.

The company is voluntarily recalling the epinephrine injection, USP because of potential inaccurate dosage delivery.

ProBioGen plans to develop and scale-up production of a biosimilar to the mAb cancer drug trastuzumab and will transfer the commercial manufacturing process to Indonesia’s government-owned Bio Farma.

According to a third-quarter earnings report, Pfizer’s vaccine business contributed nearly 14% to its total revenue.

Biovest’s mAbVault provides supply-chain redundancy for antibodies that enables customers to lock in price-per-gram protein production.

AstraZeneca and Lilly will evaluate the safety and efficacy of a range of additional combinations for solid tumors across both companies’ complementary portfolios.

Athenex will build two facilities for high-potency, oncology API ingredients in Chongqing, China.

The site is expected to become fully operational in 2017 and will produce approximately 40 million packs and 850 million tablets of some 30 innovative medicines every year.

Under the terms of the agreement, Hikma will have the exclusive rights to register, distribute and market Zevtera in the Middle East and North America.

Senator McCaskill deemed J. Michael Pearson’s response letter on drug pricing “inadequate.”

Cell Therapy Catapult will provide manufacturing scale-up services to enable Asterias’ future clinical trials and commercial supply for Asterias’ allogeneic dendritic cell immunotherapy, AST-VAC2.

BASF will develop a higher-purity version of poloxamer 188 for Mast Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company.

Probiodrug has signed an agreement with Rentschler Biotechnologie GmbH for the development of PBD-C06, a pGlu-Abeta-specific monoclonal antibody, as treatment for patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

The new facility will house the company’s expanding R&D operations.

The results from an international study on nivolumumab, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggest a paradigm shift in the standard of care for previously treated lung cancer patients.

Roche says its trial results validate the hypothesis that B lymphocytes are key targets in the mediation of the inflammatory damage characteristic of multiple sclerosis.

MedImmune and 3M Drug Delivery Systems collaborate to develop toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists for immuno-oncology.

Intuniv (guanfacine hydrochloride prolonged-release tablets) is the first selective alpha-2A adrenergic receptor agonist licensed for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in Europe.

The fully humanized monoclonal antibody is licensed to Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Nexvet Biopharma, a veterinary biologics developer, secured a dedicated, cGMP biologics manufacturing facility in Tullamore, Ireland, and plans to invest in disposable technology.

Abenza acquired biopharmaceutical CDMO PacificGMP and expanded the company’s San Diego facility.

According to AstraZeneca, the purchase of the biologics bulk plant will double the company's biologics manufacturing capacity in the US.

MGB Biopharma, a biopharmaceutical company specializing in the development of novel anti-infectives to antibiotic resistance, has been named a winner in the 2015 Scottish Business Insider Deals & Dealmakers Awards.

Lannett Company agreed to purchase Kremers Urban Pharmaceuticals, the US specialty generic-pharmaceuticals subsidiary of global biopharmaceuticals company UCB S.A., for $1.23 billion.

Mumbai-based Cipla agreed to acquire US companies InvaGen and Exelan, giving Cipla US tablet and capsule production capacity, a more diversified portfolio, and market access.

Aragen Bioscience has licensed ProteoNic Biotechnology’s 2G UNic recombinant protein production technology, which increases manufacturing efficiency and reduces cost of goods for recombinant biologicals.

Tuzistra XR for cough relief is said to be the only twice-daily, extended-release codeine-based cough and cold syrup available in the US.