• The Goals of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences

    Forbes | Last year NIH set up the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences to overcome bottlenecks and accelerate the development of diagnostics and therapeutics. Recently, the Center's mandate has been further expanded. 

    May 16, 2012

  • 454, SoftGenetics Enter Promotion Agreement

    Bio-IT World | 454 Life Sciences and SoftGenetics have entered into a co-promotion agreement designed to provide users of 454 Sequencing Systems the broad range of next-generation sequencing data analysis options provided by SoftGenetics NextGENe software.

    May 15, 2012

  • Pitfalls Aplenty for Observational Research

    Bio-IT World | Limitations on the use of observational data in comparative effectiveness research (CER) were among the themes of a Post-Approval Summit held in early May at Harvard Medical School*. The march toward bigger and often mandatory post-approval studies needs to be rooted in “strong science,” enabled by industry partnerships with large health care delivery organizations, insurers, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and academia, according to keynote speaker Michael Rosenblatt, executive vice president and chief medical officer at Merck. 

    May 13, 2012

  • Best Practices: Bringing the Trial to the Patient

    2012 Bio-IT World Best Practices Winner | Almost a year ago, Pfizer started recruiting for a different kind of clinical trial: the first ever conducted under a Participatory Patient-Centered (PPC) model. Last month, the team’s efforts—still very much ongoing—were rewarded with a Bio-IT World Best Practices Award in the Clinical and Health IT category. 

    May 10, 2012

  • Drug Timing Affects Efficacy

    MIT News | Researchers at MIT and Dana Farber have shown that staggering cancer drugs produces better results--in very specific ways. The results were published in Cell today. 

    May 10, 2012

  • More Thoughts on Sequence Analysis

    Xconomy | We are generally agreed that the analysis side of the next generation sequencing coin is becoming the toughest. Even if you get your sequence in a day, then you have to process it.

    May 9, 2012

  • GSK Launches Hostile Takeover Bid for Human Genome Sciences

    Baltimore Sun | GlaxoSmithKline has launched a hostile takeover bid for long-time partner Human Genome Sciences worth $2.6 billion, or $13/share. 

    May 9, 2012

  • Manolis Kellis, Epigenetics, and the Future of Fighting Disease

    Bio-IT World | BOSTON—Manolis Kellis, professor of computer science at MIT, addressed the Bio-IT World Conference on efforts to revolutionize the study of human disease by bridging the gap between genetics and epigenetics. 

    May 9, 2012

  • Introducing the Bina Box

    Technology Review | Bina Technologies is throwing its hat into the genome analysis ring with an in-house analyzer that can upload the resulting genetic profiles to the company's cloud-hosted site for data management, sharing, and aggregation. 

    May 8, 2012

  • Editors' Asian Favorites

    Bio-IT World | Bio-IT World has invited a group of superb world-renowned speakers from across Asia, Europe, and North America for its very first conference in Asia (Marina Bay Sands, Singapore; June 6-8, 2012). They will present the latest advances in research and technology in areas such as next-gen sequencing, personalized medicine, high-performance and cloud computing, bioinformatics, drug discovery and development, and translational research. Read on for some of the editor's favorites. 

    May 7, 2012

  • The Merits of Data Sharing in Tackling Rare Diseases

    Bio-IT World | BOSTON—Alex Sherman, director of systems in neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) presented promising new initiatives in the battle against rare diseases at the Bio-IT World Conference. Sherman proposed a model for dealing with the many obstacles that confront research on rare diseases. 

    May 7, 2012

  • Biosimilars Gain Ground in Europe

    Forbes | Thanks to enabling legislation and differing clinical trials requirements, Europe moves further ahead in biosimilar sales.

    May 7, 2012

  • Dagdigian’s Trends in IT Highlight Bio-IT World Expo

    Bio-IT World | BOSTON—“Filter my words accordingly; I’m not a pundit or visionary,” began Chris Dagdigian in a superfluous introduction to his annual “trends in the trenches” review at the Bio-IT World Expo last week. 

    May 3, 2012

  • Oxford Nanopore Announces a Further $50 Million fundraising

    Bio-IT World | Oxford Nanopore has raised an additional $50 million from private investors as it seeks to build up the commercial and manufacturing infrastructure in preparation for commercial launch of its next-gen sequencing system later this year.  

    May 3, 2012

  • May Free Trials & Downloads

     Bio-IT World | Free trials and downloads for May. 

    May 3, 2012

  • GSK, Yale Enter Drug Discovery Collaboration

    Hartford Business Journal | GlaxoSmithKline and Yale have entered a new drug discovery partnership focused on potential medications to target disease-causing proteins. 

    May 3, 2012

  • Big Pharma and Rare Diseases: Finding a Balance

    Forbes | Rare diseases affect fewer than 200,000 individuals, but the small consumer pool hasn't negated research for these diseases, rather good drugs for rare diseases can make pharma companies quite a lot of money. Finding a balance between the profits and patients, though, is always a bit tricky.

    May 3, 2012

  • Biotech's Takeover Protection Thanks to a Few Big Investors

    Reuters | Biotech's ability to fight off Big Pharma is due to a handful of large investors that dominate the companies' shares registries.

    May 2, 2012

  • The Off-Label Drug War of Words

    Bio-IT World | The Skeptical Outsider | If knowledge is power and ignorance is bliss, what is power used to prevent knowledge from eliminating ignorance? I don’t know; ask the FDA. 

    May 1, 2012

  • UC Santa Cruz Launches Cancer Genomics Hub

    UC Santa Cruz | The University of California, Santa Cruz has established the Cancer Genomics Hub (CGHub), a large-scale data repository and user portal for the National Cancer Institute's cancer genome research programs. 

    May 2, 2012