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Biotext features are authored by our panel of expert contributors, if you would like to submit ideas for features please e-mail e-mail editor@biotext.co.uk
Travellers’ Diarrhoea Vaccines – a good run for your money?
Dr. Nicholas Miller, of Beremans Limited (www.beremans.com), and Ingelise Saunders, of ACE Biosciences AS (www.acebiosciences.com), discuss the growing need for and potential value in the development of a vaccine for Travellers’ Diarrhoea
 
Is British innovation really dead?
Stop whingeing about interest rates and start investing in the UK’s world leading technical innovators – it will be the willingness and ability to leverage British Intellectual Property that will determine economic success in the long term, argues Matthew Walls, chief executive officer of Oxford BioSignals.
 
A New Approach To Vaccine Development
Dr Bruce Roser, chief scientific advisor for Cambridge Biostability (www.biostability.com), discusses the benefits of investing in new technology to tackle vaccine wastage and fill growing needs in developing nations.
 
The science of successful fundraising
Dr Bill Love, chief executive officer of Destiny Pharma (www.destiny-pharma.demon.co.uk), which has secured the world’s first light-activated cure for MRSA, discusses how to raise funds and overcome the obstacles faced by small, high-risk companies in the pharmaceutical sector.
 
Avoiding the boiler room
Gavin Haywood, from AIM-specialist stockbrokers Corporate Synergy, argues that fund managers are becoming increasingly frustrated at being bombarded with calls from UK equity salespeople trying to promote shares in which they have no interest.
 
Fair of face, foul of heart - cardiotoxicity and drug development
Drug-related cardiotoxicity is difficult to predict in the early stages of drug development, and may not be observed until the post-marketing stage, when the product is used in large populations. Very large amounts of time and money are wasted by the failure to detect serious side effects until late in the drug development process. Indeed, it is thought that cardiotoxic potential is now the primary cause of drug withdrawals, more significant even than liver toxicity. Here Dr. Nick Miller examines some of the main issues pertinent to cardiotoxicity and new drug development.
 
Whole cell hard sell - high content screening in drug discovery
Paul Smith and Nick Miller discuss the increasing use of whole cells at early points in the drug discovery process and outline a few of the technological advances supporting this trend.
 
Computational challenges for drug discovery: transforming data into knowledge
In this article, Mohammad Afshar (Ariana Pharmaceuticals) and Nick Miller (Beremans Limited) outline the main sources of drug discovery data, the approaches currently being used to bridge the gap between data and knowledge, and the limitations of these approaches. They also touch on some of the emerging computational technologies in this field.
 
The drug discovery process - space and time in the pharmaceutical universe
Nick Miller (Beremans Limited) and Mohammad Afshar (Ariana Pharmaceuticals) present a broad overview of pharmaceutical drug discovery, and outline some of the main types of technologies associated with the process.
 
Shibboleths in the accents of cancer
Beremans' Sebastian Quist introduces the concept of cell signalling and examines the extent to which the study of cancer cell signalling may yield therapeutic targets.
 
RNA interference therapies - a RISCy business?
Beremans' Alex Hoffman looks at therapeutic approaches derived from molecular biology and examines the methodologies and potential benefits and failures of RNA interference therapies.
 
The misfolding diseases unfold
It has become increasingly apparent that there are a number of diseases which, although they have very different symptoms and aetiologies, may have in common a perturbation of protein folding. Beremans' Nick Miller examines the 'protein misfolding diseases' and speculates on the therapeutic implications of the concept of misfolding as a causative factor in disease.
 
Stem cells - can blank slates become blank cheques?
Bereman's Sebastian Quist takes a look at stem cell technology, the development potential behind the process and whether blank slates will lead to blank cheques.
 
Euro biotech will be forced to 'refocus'
A new report from Ernst & Young, its 11th annual European biotech report 'Refocus', has revealed that total 2003 European revenues fell by 12% to E11.27bn, the first time the industry has witnessed a fall in revenues.
 
Prefilled syringes point to the future
Over 150 years after its invention, Alex Hoffman examines the prickly subject of hypodermic injections, their benefits over oral drug administration, usage and measures for improvement.
 
US biotech attracts largest investment in Q1
The biopharmaceutical segment of the US venture capital attracted its largest infusion of venture capital spending ever in Q1 2004, according to the Quarterly Venture Capital Report released by Ernst & Young and VentureOne, a service of Dow Jones.
 
2004 the last biotech IPO window for three years
2004 is likely to be the last window of opportunity for biotech companies in Europe to go public for the next three years, according to Martijn Kleijwegt, managing partner of Amsterdam and Munich-based venture capital fund, Life Sciences Partners.
 
Cancer Vaccination
Most of us are well-acquainted with the concept of vaccination against disease, particularly in the wake of the current debate on the safety of the MMR vaccine. Equally, most of us associate vaccination with the prophylaxis of infectious disease. After all, isn't this how we have escaped the scourges of smallpox and other killers, such as tetanus, diphtheria and poliomyelitis, for so long? A sugar cube with a drop of attenuated virus, a mixture of proteins injected under the skin, a booster at some future point - and we are protected against future assault by some of the horrors of the microbial world. Less well-known, however, is the idea that the arsenal of the immune system may be directed at malignant disease, an approach that has been called cancer vaccination.
 
Cancer Vaccination
Most of us are well-acquainted with the concept of vaccination against disease, particularly in the wake of the current debate on the safety of the MMR vaccine. Equally, most of us associate vaccination with the prophylaxis of infectious disease. After all, isn't this how we have escaped the scourges of smallpox and other killers, such as tetanus, diphtheria and poliomyelitis, for so long? A sugar cube with a drop of attenuated virus, a mixture of proteins injected under the skin, a booster at some future point - and we are protected against future assault by some of the horrors of the microbial world. Less well-known, however, is the idea that the arsenal of the immune system may be directed at malignant disease, an approach that has been called cancer vaccination.
 
Gene Therapy - the ultimate application of genomics, or hyped hopes?
Gene therapy originally carried the idea of the cure of genetic diseases through replacement of dysfunctional genes or, more realistically, through augmentation of an inadequate genome by addition of correctly functioning genes. Currently, the term may be used to cover any treatment where a therapeutic effect is mediated by the transfer and subsequent expression of exogenous nucleic acid. The therapeutic effect may be due to the production of a beneficial protein, for example the CFTR protein in cystic fibrosis patients, or it may be due to the production of directly or indirectly toxic proteins, such as prodrugs for the elimination of cancer cells. Strictly speaking, gene therapy does not include the use of nucleic acids to mediate the production of antigenic proteins for the purposes of vaccination, although it has to be said that the technology overlap between vaccination and gene therapy may be extensive.
 
The EPIC link between diet & cancer
EPIC-Norfolk is part of the Europe-wide EPIC study, the largest study of diet and health ever undertaken. It involves over half a million people in ten countries. By studying very many people in different countries with differing diets, using carefully designed and tested questionnaires, EPIC should produce much more specific information about the effect of diet on long-term health than previous studies.
 
To sleep, perchance
Dr. Nick Miller ponders the debilitating effects of insomnia and the properties and effectiveness of the benzodiazepines, barbiturates and 'non-benzodiazepines' used to treat disorders that may affect up to 30-40% of the population.
 
Meeting investor demands
Biotech firm Micap's recent AIM flotation reveals the lengths businesses must go to in order to keep their growth plans on track.
 
Long versus short term returns: can shareholder tensions in biotech be resolved?
The ongoing battle between the board of XTL Biopharmaceuticals and investors Shore Capital highlights the biggest problem to arise when shareholders are forced to assess their losses.
 
Buyer beware the biotech boom
A number of recent announcements suggest the long-awaited biotech boom may be on its way.
 
Articles: 1-25 | 26-30
 
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