Biomedical

Testosterone booster Acrux this week stormed into the black for the first time, announcing a net profit of $46.6 million after earlier in the year signing one of the biggest ever multinational licensing deals for an Australian biotech.

Troubled HIV drug developer Avexa may be poised for yet another coup after major shareholder Caldaza this week called for an extraordinary general meeting to discuss the future of the company

Regenerative medicine specialists Mesoblast today reported a net loss of $14.8 million for the full year ended 30 June 2010, an increase on the previous year’s loss of $12.3 million.

Melbourne biotech Clinuvel announced today that it plans to conduct clinical trials of its UV protection drug Scenesse as a treatment for the skin pigmentation disorder vitiligo.

Regenerative medicine specialists Mesoblast announced this week that it has convened an extraordinary general meeting with shareholders to vote on the proposed acquisition of the company’s US partner Angioblast Systems.

Professor Philip Hogg, Director of the new Lowy Cancer Research Centre at the University of NSW, has received the prestigious 2010 Industry & Investment NSW Eureka Prize for Medical Research Translation.

This year’s prestigious GlaxoSmithKline Australia Award for Research has gone to Monash University’s Professor Charles Mackay for his work on immunology and inflammation, particularly the discovery of GPR43 as a major regulator of innate and inflammatory response.

A compassionate program run by Melbourne biotech Specialised Therapeutics (STA) has helped more than 240 Australian cancer patients to benefit from a world-leading new treatment based on nanoparticles, the company said.

Troubled drug developer and healthcare provider Sigma Pharmaceuticals finally put an end to months of speculation today declaring that it would recommend shareholders accept an offer from Aspen Pharmacare to buy its pharmaceuticals business for $900 million.

CSIRO has come up with a new technique for repairing knee cartilage by combining chondrocytes with a biodegradable polymer.

A trial of a vaccine for stages II and III melanoma didn't turn out as expected, so the researchers tried it in stage IV patients, causing a few surprises.

The first merger of 2006 has created new opportunities in the hot field of theranostics. Ruth Beran talks with its architects about the merged company and its future plans.

To no one's surprise, CSL has become the dominant force in the Australian biotechnology sector. Graeme O'Neill learns from CSL's chief scientist, Andrew Cuthbertson, about the solid research that will drive the company in the next few years.

The research community is becoming more sophisticated in the way they approach intellectual property and industry partnerships. Ruth Beran looks at how technology transfer has changed, where it is going and the challenges it faces.

Biotechnology has provided a solution to the problem of how to get science to the market without compromising research, writes editor-in-chief Iain Scott.

Pfizer's Peter Corr told the AusBiotech 2005 conference that big pharma and biotech are part of a delicate ecosystem -- and both have key roles to play.

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw told AusBiotech 2005 about opportunities for Australian biotech to work with India.

US venture capitalist Osagie Imasogie told AusBiotech 2005 that biotech companies need to get aggressive when it comes to finding opportunities.

A pocket of middle Australia on the northern outskirts of Perth is the setting for a proposed biobanking project that even its instigator, Professor Lyle Palmer of the University of Western Australia, calls “ludicrously ambitious”.

Epigenetics is moving from the laboratory to the clinic and the pharmacy, with several histone deacetylase inhibitors on the market and epigenetic screening likely to become as widespread as genetic screening.

A new study has shown that environmental enrichment ameliorates a motor co-ordination deficit in a mouse model of Rett syndrome.

For such a simple idea, it’s a surprise that no one has thought of it before. An automated system for streaking agar plates is on the market, developed here in Australia.

The Clinical Research Excellence (CRX08) conference starts in Brisbane tomorrow. We talk flu pandemics with plenary speaker Anne Kelso.

Professor Alan Cowman of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute will deliver the Rubbo Oration at this year's Australian Society of Microbiology (ASM) annual meeting, being held in Melbourne next week.

The Sydney Project aims to have human embryonic stem cells in clinical trials to treat type 1 diabetes in four years.

Biochemical geneticist Kevin Carpenter discusses how he helped tracked down the blip in the Bindeez beads.

Sydney-based Narhex has begun recruiting for an early-stage trial of an HIV drug. Helen Schuller spoke with the company's MD, John Mills, about HIV drug development, working in China, and good management.

Collaboration between Patrys and CSL sends Patrys stocks soaring.

QRxPharma raises $21.6 m and Living Cell Technology offers share purchase plan.

Mesoblast (ASX:MSB) ups and downs after trial successes.

Microarray technology is now a major tool available to the geneticist. The technology allows researchers to look at the expression of a vast array of genes simultaneously, and myriad applications have been found in the last few years. But deciding on the best microarray system for the needs of the research is a difficult task, with several choices available.

When you think of the Human Genome Project, images of banks of sequencing machines pumping out millions of base pairs of information comes to mind. According to Dr John Barlow, Melbourne divisional manager of the Australian Genome Research Facility, state-of-the-art sequencing is still largely electrophoresis-based. However, sequencers have come a long way since the days of pouring your own sequencing gel and using radioactive dideoxynucleotides.

Capillary electrophoresis (CE) is a technique that allows researchers to separate analytes based on their differential mobilities in aqueous media when an electric field is applied.

Sample capacity is at the heart of the decision on what capillary electrophoresis system best fits a lab's needs.