Industry Briefs: February 18, 2013
A roundup of additional company and people news from pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies, their suppliers, and contract-service providers.
Company News
Almac and DSM Pharmaceutical Products, the custom manufacturing and technology business of Royal DSM, reported the successful transfer of enzymes for enzyme screening, process development and scale-up manufacture, as part of an October 2012 agreement in biocatalysis. The agreement grants both parties access to their enzyme platform technologies and services for the manufacturing of APIs. The collaboration also enables Almac to offer its customers a preferred partner for large-scale production. Read More
AstraZeneca announced that, on Feb. 14, 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit summarily upheld a lower court ruling that had found the formulation patent protecting Seroquel XR (quetiapine fumarate) extended-release tablets in the US to be valid and infringed. Read More
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a division of the US Department of Health and Human Services, will continue to support the Protein Sciences’s influenza vaccines program. BARDA held an internal review of the Protein Sciences program and made a decision to modify its contract with the company to support certain activities associated with scaling up manufacturing to meet the capacity metrics in the contract and to be able to expand the age indication of Flublok and Panblok influenza vaccines. Read More
DSM Pharmaceutical Products has signed a collaboration agreement with Chemtrix in the field of continuous flow chemistry. The collaboration is intended to provide equipment, development, and manufacturing services to the pharmaceutical industry. Read More
Guerbet, a contrast agent specialty company for medical imaging, has announced that the Medical Imaging Drugs Advisory Committee to FDA has voted unanimously to recommend that FDA approve the new drug application (NDA) for Dotarem (gadoterate meglumine) for adults, and for pediatric use for children two years of age and older. The committee also voted not to recommend at this time approval of the indication for children under two years of age. Read More
FDA has approved Novartis’s Zortress (everolimus) for the prophylaxis of organ rejection in adult patients receiving a liver transplant. Zortress is the first mammalian target of rapamycin inhibitor approved for use following liver transplantation. It is also the first immunosuppressant approved by the FDA in over a decade for use following liver transplantation. Read More
Drug Solutions Podcast: A Closer Look at mRNA in Oncology and Vaccines
April 30th 2024In this episode fo the Drug Solutions Podcast, etherna’s vice-president of Technology and Innovation, Stefaan De Koker, discusses the merits and challenges of using mRNA as the foundation for therapeutics in oncology as well as for vaccines.
Drug Solutions Podcast: Gliding Through the Ins and Outs of the Pharma Supply Chain
November 14th 2023In this episode of the Drug Solutions podcast, Jill Murphy, former editor, speaks with Bourji Mourad, partnership director at ThermoSafe, about the supply chain in the pharmaceutical industry, specifically related to packaging, pharma air freight, and the pressure on suppliers with post-COVID-19 changes on delivery.
Pharmaceutical Tariffs Are Imminent: How Industry is Bracing for Impact
April 16th 2025On April 14, 2025, the Trump Administration launched a national security-driven investigation into pharmaceuticals, a move that will likely result in tariffs being placed on pharmaceutical drugs, ingredients, and other components that are imported from outside of the United States.
