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Ok got you. Thanks for the clarification.
Still very early in development but will be interesting to follow. Will ask an immunologyst friend about their technology.
You know they all claim it is very safe, cost effective and have higher efficacy but lets wait for the data.
Have a great weekend.
Idit
This calls for a Robin Williams quote:
"Problem with men is that God gave them a penis and a brain, and only enough blood to run one at a time."
Fred, when writing me about CYGX you said: "The use of synDNA (as opposed to plasmid based DNA)". When I was watching CytoGenix proprietary gene blocking technology animation at their web, it shows a plasmid based delivery of ssDNA. What am I missing here?
Idit
If this is true, and I believe it is, then many leading scientist from the RNA interference field will eat their hats!
OMRI
Stancic replaces Michael Burshtine, who resigned in April (personal reasons: The presence of the CFO was required in
the U.S. full time. Burshtine is based in Israel, Relocation was the main issue).
They believe a head start to market for JNJ (from 1-4 months) will enable JNJ to more easily convert accounts from King's Thrombin JMI product to OMRI's and will better position JNJ for when ZGEN eventually does reach market, as JNJ will probably by then have a second FDA approval for a combined kit containing OMRI's Thrombin and JNJ's own Surgifoam absorbable sponge, positioning JNJ with three OMRI-related product offerings into wound care.
And before you say anything: yes, I do think that in time recombinants will take over the market (Endless supply free of blood donation, quality control much better, no fear of unknown diseases etc.).
Idit
I'll stick to the sausage thank you very much.
Wrong gender, lol
Dubi can't you see this is a real cry for help?
I would go shopping for Fred myself if that size issue was not involved, but we don't want to go to this territory again :-0
"My boys need a home"
Cosmo Kramer on that issue
p.s. not retired but away from the bench
This looks like a nice shift from science to comedy land:
August 21, 2007
Scientist fired for DNA testing hubbie's undies
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A state forensics scientist who said she tested her husband’s underwear for DNA to determine if he was cheating on her has been fired.
Ann Chamberlain of Okemos testified in a March 7 divorce hearing that she ran the test last September on the underwear of Charles Gordon Jr. Asked by his attorney what she found, she answered:“Another female. It wasn’t me.”
She said during another hearing that she ran the test on her own time with expired chemicals that were set to be thrown away.
The Michigan State Police, which oversees the Lansing forensics laboratory where Chamberlain worked, announced Tuesday that it had fired her effective Aug. 16 after conducting an internal investigation into violations of department administrative policy.
State police policies dealing with the care and use of property state that “department supplies, materials or equipment shall not be used for any non-duty or non-department purpose.”
Chamberlain could not immediately be located for comment. Aphone listed for Ann Chamberlain in Okemos was disconnected.
The 33-year-old scientist received an award for Outstanding Contribution to the Michigan State Police Biological Services in 2006 for her research and method development in embryonic/fetal DNA recovery, according to Forensic Science Consultants Inc., which lists her among the forensic scientists it employs.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/2007/08/21/pf-4435531.html
Sorry Fred, this background Dubi was telling you about was 2 decades ago during my grad days. I do remember that guys in the next door lab were working on a DNA vaccine against Ecoli (for poultry) but as far as I know nothing big ever developed from DNA vaccines despite a lot of work that has been done. But again, I know very little about this so I do not dare guessing the chances of these products.
Idit
I don't need to be convinced, I have been converted some 20 years ago back at the university :)
"ever heard of Cytogenix?"
Nope. After a glimpse at their web I can only tell you that Antisense technology is no longer considered "sexy". It works differently than RNA interference (RNAi). Antisense needs to bind the RNA and rely on the activity of RNase that recognize dsRNA. So it acts by killing the messenger. RNAi is much more common and can kill the messenger or can kill translation and is sequence specific and relies on a cleaving enzyme that trims it to a 20-13 nucleotide long. Antisense had a problem of stability and delivery. RNAi is stable and the delivery is about to be resolved. Lots of Antisense scientists I know have shifted to the RNAi arena and that is also where the money goes.
Idit
p.s. I could not answer yesterday as my daily posts reached the max amount.
rThrombin vs Thrombin-
Oh we're not getting in there again :)
ZGEN
The ZGEN delay is positive to OMRI who should get its own Thrombin approval, which is only two weeks away on Sept. 6th.
"Better get that pancake bunny back here"
Or the piano player
You know what? you can do the drill with your closes on, just don't tell anyone
Now is a good time for a sandwich and a cold shower
p.s. did I pressed that button again?
Dubi, what on earth are you implying?
Fred and I were talking about the size of the hotdog.
The harder they come the harder they fall.
You can use this at rough times like that
My bad, I thought we are talking about its size.
I take it that monsieur prefers his medium?
he he, you guys are really sensitive when it comes to hotdogs ;)
Like this?
No hinting to Fred or yourself.
LLY announced that an sNDA for Cymbalta in FMS has been filed,
suggesting potential label expansion in 2008. CYPB/FRX plan to file an NDA for Milnacipran in 4Q07.
Actually, I wanted to find out which software was responsible to the pc security failure, could she have been using this?
http://www.adsblog.co.uk/blog/images/funny_firewall.jpg
I hate to come between you and Fred,
seems like you're having boatloads of fun, together ;)
PDLI-
There were allegations and concerns regarding the willful mismanagement of PDL by McDade. The hiring of a new CEO and PDL's ongoing strategic review could result in the sale of the company.
Royalty revs were solid at $80M for 2Q, Cardene sales, which were $40.5M, appear to have gained momentum, PDL could achieve '07 product sales guidance of $200M.
DNA product sales of Actemra and Cimzia could add growth in royalty revs. They have initiated the 2nd ph.III study Nuvion in UC, and looks like it has long-term safety and durability. Also the presentation of full ph.II results for Daclizumab in MS
at ECTRIMS in 4Q07 should be positive for them.
I bought a year ago @ $16.8 and holding, I think there is still upside for the stock.
Idit
Cheer up, could be worse
http://www.hypexr.org/comic_page/C28.gif
Liraglutide vs Byetta
The preliminary data indicate that liraglutide's activity is comparable to, or modestly better than, AMLN's Byetta.
Also Liraglutide is taken once a day (vs. twice for Byetta) but i think that LAR will do better than both regarding HbA1c at 26 weeks and weight loss (also weekly dosing). Data from the trial comparing Byetta to LAR will be out in 4Q this year.
Scientists puzzled by severe allergic reaction to cancer drug in the middle Southern US
http://www.omniomix.com/inthenews.php?id=82133
CHAPEL HILL – A patient’s expectations about the side effects of chemotherapy usually focus on nausea, hair loss, fatigue and other side effects. Worries about severe allergic reactions to their therapy is usually not a concern.
A recent study from the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Vanderbilt-Ingram Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Sarah Canon Cancer Center in Nashville have identified an unusually high rate of allergic reaction in cancer patients living in the middle South who received a common drug used for treating their cancer.
This study was presented at the 43rd annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago in June, 2007 and appears online Aug. 17th in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
The drug, cetuximab, marketed by Bristol-Meyers Squibb as Erbitux, is a widely used chemotherapeutic agent for treating colon cancer, head and neck tumors, and is being studied in the treatment of ovarian, lung, breast and gastrointestinal tumors.
When cetuximab was first approved, the first three patients treated at UNC had severe reactions to the drug. Doctors at both Sarah Canon and Vanderbilt also had more patients than expected react with a drop in blood pressure and shortness of breath or other hypersensitivity reactions within minutes of infusion of cetuximab.
“After speaking with others, we realized that patients who lived on a line across North Carolina, Tennessee, northern Arkansas and southern Missouri had these adverse reactions to the drug,” said study leader Dr. Bert O’Neil, assistant professor of medicine, division of hematology and oncology at UNC. “So, we thought it appropriate to see what common bonds were there.”
Cancer researchers from UNC and Vanderbilt pooled their patients dating back to when the drug received approval from the Food and Drug Administration, in 2004. More than 140 patients from ongoing clinical trials (at Vanderbilt) and current clinical records (at UNC) were reviewed for the presence of immediate, severe hypersensitivity reactions as well as pertinent demographics to determine this region’s rate of allergic reactions and to see if a profile of the potentially allergic patient was evident.
The nationwide rate of severe allergic reactions to cetuximab is only about 2 percent. However, 22 percent of patients in this study showed severe allergic reactions to the drug. Cetuximab normally is infused over a two-hour period, but allergic patients had a reaction within minutes of starting the infusion, a classic anaphylactic reaction. The strongest predictor of a reaction to cetuximab was a history of other hypersensitivities, such as allergic asthma, food allergies, bee stings or allergies to other drugs, such as penicillin.
What is it about this strip across the middle South" “A good question,” said O’Neil. “The most likely places to look would be food- or plant-based allergens. If it is of plant origin, finding the source could be a needle-in-a-haystack search. And it’s a narrow geographic band; colleagues in Atlanta or the University of Virginia haven’t seen this type of reaction.”
The research team felt that clinicians in this middle South region must obtain a thorough history of allergic reaction and be prepared to use an alternative drug, such as panitumimab, for patients with a history of hypersensitivity reactions, O’Neil said.
“Bristol-Myers Squibb is studying a screening test for the specific factor that leads to the reaction. In the meantime, doctors in the middle South need to be aware of, and be prepared to treat, sudden, severe allergic reactions when using cetuximab,” O’Neil said.
Based on the results of this study, UNC has a physician, physician assistant or nurse practitioner present for the first 30 minutes of all infusions of cetuximab. The Sarah Cannon Cancer Center halted all studies the drug.
“This is a curious problem, but not a problem we can’t deal with,” said O’Neil. “As long as we know the patient’s allergy history, we know what to do.”
###
The co-authors of this study include Drs. Robert Allen, Thomas Stinchcomb, Dominic Moore and Richard Goldberg of UNC; Dr. David Spigel of the Sarah Cannon Cancer Research Institute and Dr. Jordan Berlin of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The study was funded by the UNC’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the School of Medicine.
Observation:
BiolineRX is trading just $5M above cash. There were no bad news, on the contrary, pipeline is advancing as expected.
I'm waiting to see what they plan doing with CF101 for RA.
Hope the stock will recover some more until then.
Only healthy thing there is her sense of humour...
Just PM me in case you need a mouth to mouth cheri.
Protalix ain't no place for sissies, Dubi
At current burn rate they have money for a year or so:
XTL Biopharmaceuticals Announces Financial Results for the Six Months Ended June 30, 2007
Wednesday August 15, 5:31 am ET
VALLEY COTTAGE, New York, August 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- XTL Biopharmaceuticals Ltd. (NASDAQ: XTLB; LSE: XTL; TASE: XTL), a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the acquisition, development and commercialization of therapeutics for the treatment of unmet medical needs, particularly neuropathic pain and hepatitis C, today announced its financial results for the six months ended June 30, 2007.
At June 30, 2007, the Company had cash, cash equivalents and short-term bank deposits of $12.6 million, compared to $25.2 million at December 31, 2006. The decrease of $12.6 million during the first six months of 2007 was attributable primarily to the Company's $7.5 million upfront payment made in connection with the in-licensing of Bicifadine in January 2007, operating expenditures associated with the planned Phase IIb clinical trial of Bicifadine, the development of the DOS hepatitis C pre-clinical program, and operating expenditures associated with the Company's legacy hepatitis C clinical programs that were terminated this year.
The loss for the six months ended June 30, 2007 was $14.6 million, or $0.07 per ordinary share, compared to a loss of $7.3 million, or $0.04 per ordinary share, for the six months ended June 30, 2006, representing an increase in net loss of $7.3 million. The increased loss was primarily attributable to the $7.5 million upfront payment in connection with the in-licensing of Bicifadine and additional costs associated with the Bicifadine program, offset by lower costs associated with the Company's legacy hepatitis C clinical programs. The increase in loss was also due to a $0.6 million charge that was recorded relating to stock appreciation rights granted as part of the Bicifadine transaction. For the six months ended June 30, 2007 and 2006, the Company's loss of $14.6 million and $7.3 million, respectively, included $1.0 million and $1.2 million, respectively, of non-cash stock option compensation expense.
Ron Bentsur, Chief Executive Officer of XTL, commented, "From a financial standpoint our spend over the first 6 months, excluding the extraordinary payment associated with the in-licensing of Bicifadine, was slightly below plan. We have been planning our Phase IIb study for Bicifadine in diabetic neuropathic pain and are looking forward to starting that study shortly. As a member of the SNRI class, a proven class in neuropathic pain, and as a drug candidate that has demonstrated anti-pain activity in multiple clinical trials, we believe that Bicifadine represents a very compelling later-stage opportunity." Mr. Bentsur added, "We are very excited about the pending commencement of the Phase IIb clinical study for Bicifadine as we strive to increase investor awareness to this undervalued opportunity."
About XTL Biopharmaceuticals Ltd.
Snip
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/070815/ukw009.html?.v=101
Results from phase II of CF101 for RA were puzzling:
For one endpoint the placebo effect was similar to that of the drug. However, 3 other parameters looked positive for the drug.
What they are probably doing now is a full report of the trial, and letting reviewers go over their numbers and side effects.
Due to the good safety profile of the drug, my guess is that they can convince the FDA to let them go to phase III, but they will need a partner and with the excipient issue, they may have a hard time finding one. I would be very cautious about CF101 future for RA.