News

A roundup of additional company and people news from pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies, their suppliers, and contract-service providers.

Allergan and MAP Pharmaceuticals have entered into a definite merger agreement under which Allergan will purchase all of MAP?s outstanding shares for the price of $25.00 per share.

According to the Federal Trade Commission, the number of potentially anticompetitive patent dispute settlements between branded and generic drug companies increased between 2011 and 2012.

FDA has approved Protein Sciences's FluBlok, a seasonal influenza vaccine made with novel technology. FluBlok uses recombinant DNA and a modified baculovirus (a virus that infects insects) to produce a safe and effective human flu vaccine. FDA approved Flublok for people 18–49 years old.

A roundup of additional company and people news from pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies, their suppliers, and contract-service providers.

Rutgers engineers constructed a direct compaction line in collaboration with Janssen.

Adopting a seven-step process resolves tableting problems.

FDA has issued a Warning Letter to Hameln Pharmaceuticals GmbH after observing "significant" cGMP violations for finished pharmaceuticals at the company?s facility in Hameln, Germany.

With so many blockbuster drugs falling off the patent cliff, research-based drug companies are now embracing new development paradigms to increase R&D productivity.

FDA has released Guidance for Industry: Abuse-Deterrent Opioids?Evaluation and Labeling, Draft Guidance

Lonza will invest CHF 14 million ($15.1 million) to double the existing large-scale manufacturing capacity in Visp, Switzerland.

The European Medicines Agency has revised its guideline for the evaluation of anticancer medicinal products.

A roundup of additional company and people news from pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies, their suppliers, and contract-service providers.

A roundup of developments in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability from the bio/pharmaceutical industry, its suppliers, and other public and private organizations.

GlaxoSmithKline partners with the mobile telecommunications company Vodafone to tackle common infectious diseases in Africa.

Shire has signed an agreement to acquire Lotus Tissue Repair, Inc., a biotechnology company developing the first and only protein replacement therapy for the orphan disease, dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (DEB).

Eli Lilly expects overall revenue growth in the coming year.

FDA celebrates 30 years of the Orphan Drug Act.

The PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative and Inovio Pharmaceuticals have announced a follow-on collaboration to advance the development of malaria vaccines and new vaccine delivery technologies.

Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and GlycoVaxyn AG have entered into a three-year agreement to collaborate on the research and development of a multivalent bacterial vaccine utilizing GlycoVaxyn's bio-conjugation technology.

AbbVie, a research-focused, specialty biopharmaceutical company that was spun off from Abbott Pharmaceuticals, was officially launched on Jan. 2, 2013

Mylan, Orion Enter Into Comtan Settlement Agreement; Takeda, Amylin Termination Agreement to Codevelop and Commercialize Compounds for Obesity; and More.

USP's focus in 2013 involves standards relating to organic impurities, measurement of residual DNA and host-cell proteins in biotechnology products, and elemental impurities.

From time to time, it's important to take stock of the industry from both a retrospective and prospective point of view.

Additional approvals in December have helped to outpace a recent high set in 2011.

The EU fine-tunes legislation for the Falsified Medicines Directive, which is due to take effect this month as part of efforts to better protect patients from counterfeits.

Vaccine manufacturing was predicted in 2008 to be on the cusp of a golden era, but instead the industry has experienced cost pressures, high-profile liability cases and production setbacks.

Chapter 2.9.40 of the European Pharmacopeia is the binding requirement for dosage uniformity. Recently, an additional alternative chapter 2.9.47 has been created titled "Demonstration of Uniformity of Dosage Units using large Sample Sizes".

Tim Freeman of Freeman Technology explains how new analytical technologies have influenced quality criteria and standards for the uniformity of dosage units, and why more accurate systems are leading to greater focus on tablet scoring.

When splitting unscored tablets, the main concerns relate to API dosage control and the potential modification of time-release characteristics. PTE speaks with tableting experts Thierry Menard, Lab Manager, And Bruno Villa, President, both at Medelpharm, about how manufacturers are approaching the challenges.