AMSTERDAM, Dec 27 (Reuters) - Dutch biotechnology firm Crucell (CRCL.AS, CRXL.O) said on Wednesday it has signed a cross-licensing agreement with U.S. drugmaker Merck (MRK.N) on its vaccine production technology.
"This agreement will make it possible to speed up the delivery of our malaria and TB vaccines to the people in need, and makes it realistic to do so on the mass scale required," Jaap Goudsmit, chief scientific officer at Crucell, said in a statement.
© Reuters 2006
2006 was a very big year when it came to health news. New drug approvals, new vaccines, health scares that never quite made it and health scares that keep coming back for more. They were all part of the big year in health news in 2006.
2006 could easily be named the year of the vaccine. Several new shots hit the market: the first shingles vaccine, a whooping cough, or pertussis vaccine, for adults and a new, safer rotavirus vaccine to prevent the common diarrheal illness in children.
The biggest news, perhaps, surrounded the cervical cancer vaccine. It's approved for pre-teen girls to prevent HPV--human papilloma virus--the sexually transmitted virus that triggers cervical cancer.
London - Professor Vijay Kakkar has the gentle demeanour of a man into whose hands you would happily entrust your heart, should disease and circumstance require it. And you would be wise to do so. For the professor is a world-renowned vascular surgeon and research scientist whose career has spanned more than 40 years.
Now, approaching his 70th birthday, he is embarking on his most ambitious project yet a vaccine against heart disease that can be administered in childhood and he is confident he will achieve it before the decade is out.
By 2008, he and his team also hope to have developed a cheap, reliable urine test to identify those at high risk of heart disease.
Are you wondering who might have called for this research, as I am? What is the real purpose of this number - 62 million dead people? I think, this number is in the news for a simple reason. Fear. Put fear in us. When this pandemic will come (not if, but when), the solution will be a vaccine shot.
BOSTON, Dec. 22 (UPI) -- U.S. and Australian researchers have re-analyzed data from 27 countries on the 1918 pandemic and estimate a similar pandemic might kill 62 million today.
Based on 2004 population data, the researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Queensland in Australia say if a similarly virulent strain of flu virus were to strike today approximately 96 percent of deaths would occur in developing countries.
BAKERSFIELD - President Bush has signed legislation providing $40 million towards developing a Valley Fever vaccine. The grant would triple the amount of money that has been raised over the past decade to develop a vaccine.
Valley Fever occurs naturally in Kern County and is contracted by breathing in a fungus found in soil.
Last year, nearly 1,600 cases were diagnosed in Kern County, but according to the Health Department, there could be a lot more considering about 60 percent of the people who have it also have no symptoms.
The next step could be funding through the appropriation of a new bill or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services could make the funds available.
via 17KGET
By Anai Rhoads Ford
The first vaccine against atherosclerosis is not far away in the future, according to Jan Nilsson, professor of Experimental Cardiology at Lunds Universitet in Malmö (Sweden) and EVGN member.
Human clinical trials are likely to begin at the end of next year: they will be aimed at verifying the safety of a preparation, still under investigation in a laboratory model, made of antibodies obtained against selected fragments of oxidized Low Density Lipoproteins, or oxLDLs. LDLs are the major component of the “bad cholesterol”: their accumulation in the arterial wall causes inflammation and is a key factor in the onset of atherosclerosis.
LONDON (AFX) - Coley Pharmaceutical Group Inc said it has amended some of its exclusive licences with GlaxoSmithKline for the use of Coley''s VaxImmune vaccine in the development of vaccines for infectious diseases.
This means that the US company can enter into non-exclusive VaxImmune agreements with other vaccine developers, but will see it taking a 17.4 mln usd reduction in potential milestone payments.
The amendments do not affect the GSK''s agreement with Coley on the use of VaxImmune in the development of cancer vaccines.
source - AFX
KARACHI - The officials of WHO had not supplied the required quantity of P3 vaccines due to which two more cases of polio in the province had resulted, said Sindh Secretary Health Dr Naushad Shiekh while speaking at the closing ceremony of a training workshop organised by the UNICEF and EPI Sindh Thursday.
He said that another case of polio had been registered in Kashmore and that he would ask the WHO authorities to transfer the officials responsible for the negligence.
He said that the P1 virus had been curbed in the area while P3 had migrated from Balochistan to Sindh. He appreciated this workshop and stressed the need for more such events.
source - Daily Times
Indian pharma firm Panacea Biotec has taken a 10 percent stake in UK-based vaccine maker Cambridge Biostability (CBL) for £1.9m (€1.4m) under a new joint venture deal signed between the two companies.Panacea has also entered into an agreement to in-license Cambridge's technology for pentavalent and other vaccines used in the treatment of diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B and a virulent form of influenza.
University of South Alabama - Beginning next fall all students must have proof of measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccinations to attend the University.
"The student health center will be tracking it, and we will be holding up registration for those who have not provided verification," Beverly Kellen, practice director of Student Health, said.
In a step toward this new requirement, international students were required to submit MMR documentation as well as tuberculosis skin testing results this fall semester.
Vice President of Academic Affairs Patsy Covey said she believes the newly required immunizations are "more than justified."
Dec 4 (Reuters) - ProMetic Life Sciences Inc. (PLI.TO: Quote, Profile , Research) said its UK unit has entered into an agreement with Novartis (NVS.N: Quote, Profile , Research) to develop a synthetic-ligand affinity adsorbent for the purification of protein vaccines. BANGKOK (Reuters) - The World Health Organization launched a new global effort on Monday to find a vaccine against malaria, which infects up to 500 million people each year, and the donors to pay for it.
The Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap aims to develop and license a first generation vaccine by 2015 against the mosquito-borne disease which kills more than one million people a year, mainly African children.
"The Roadmap marks the first concerted global attempt at mapping out a shared plan of action for making a preventive malaria vaccine reality," Marie-Paule Kieny, a top WHO official, said on the sidelines of a vaccine conference in Bangkok.
CANADA - Health officials in Toronto are issuing a warning to patrons of a particular bar after one customer died of meningitis C a few days after visiting the bar. The deceased, whose identity has not been revealed was a 23 year old man who present at the gay Crews & Tango Bar, at 508 Church St., on Nov. 17 and 18. Toronto Public Health is concerned that he might have spread the infection to any of the estimated 300 to 500 other customers present through sharing drinks, cigarettes or kissing.