r&d briefs...
Dutch antibody and vaccine company Crucell, based in Leiden, and Genexine, a Korean drug development company, have entered into a licensing agreement whereby Crucell's PER.C6 cell line will be used by Genexine for the research, development and manufacture of a recombinant therapeutic vaccine against Hepatitis B (HBV). Crucell launched PER.C6 as a vaccine platform through a licensing agreement with Merck & Co. for its HIV vaccine, but is now expanding its business in the field of vaccines, according to chief medical officer Jaap Goudsmit.
A pioneering Australian stem cell company is teaming up with an international Japanese biopharmaceutical firm to build Japan's first dedicated embryonic stem cell company. The expansion into Japan is part of Melbourne-based Stem Cell Sciences' strategy to create a global cell therapy company. The new firm, SCS KK, will be based in a huge US$150m (€153m) Medical Industry Development Project in Kobe, which will include a cell production facility and a 60-bed hospital for clinical research.
A liver-cell chip capable of testing the toxicity of new drugs has been developed by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan. The chip is a 1.5cm2 glass substrate on which about 10,000 rat liver cells are mounted. The liver is commonly used to test the toxicity of candidate chemicals for new drugs in animal experiments. The new chip therefore has the potential to reduce or eliminate the need to use animals in drug testing. When given nutritional substances, liver cells on the chip produce the protein albumin in the same way as a liver, enabling test results as accurate as animal experiments.