News

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria pose a serious and growing threat. “These are superbugs that people die from,” says Erin Duffy, chief scientific officer of Melinta Therapeutics and CURE board member. “We're not going to solve the antibiotic resistance problem with the introduction of the next new antibiotic. We’re going to need sustained commitment, flexibility, enthusiasm and passion to really make a difference.” Click the link below to see a video in which Erin explains how information sharing can help researchers with antibiotic discovery — and why we need a holistic approach to build a new generation of antibiotics for the future. more

Congratulations to Yale for making it into the U.S. News list of top ten graduate schools for biosciences! According to U.S. News, "A graduate degree in biological sciences gives students a broad base of knowledge in the life sciences. The discipline also offers many specialties, such as cell or molecular biology. These are the best schools for biological sciences." more

Deborah Rathjen, B.Sc. (Hons), Ph.D., MAICD, FTSE, has been appointed as chair of the board of directors of Bioasis. She takes over from former board chair and chief executive officer Rob Hutchison, who retired. “We are absolutely delighted that Dr. Rathjen is the new chair of our board,” said Mark Day, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer, Bioasis ... more The company has also appointed Caroline Hill, Ph.D., senior vice president, head of research and development operations. “The addition of Caroline further illustrates our ability to attract top talent to the Bioasis team,” said Dr. Day ... more Bioasis is a biopharmaceutical [...]

Jonathan Rothberg, the New Haven native who pioneered high-speed DNA sequencing and more recently founded the Guilford bioscience accelerator 4Catalyzer, hopes to inspire new life-changing medical devices by offering a $25,000 prize to students at Yale, Carnegie Mellon, the University of Pennsylvania, and Brown University. "Instead of just developing hardware, I want ideas that mix hardware and software, and I'd like it to be able to affect the life of a person," Rothberg said. article in HartfordBusiness.com article in Hartford Courant

Melinta Therapeutics reports that The Menarini Group, Melinta’s commercial and co-development partner, has submitted a Marketing Authorization Application to the European Medicines Agency for delafloxacin (to be marketed under the trade name Quofenix in Europe) for the treatment of adult patients with Acute Bacterial Skin and Skin Structure Infections. “This is an important milestone for Melinta, and if approved would represent a significant expansion of delafloxacin’s market reach,” stated Dan Wechsler, Melinta’s president and chief executive officer. “In clinical studies, delafloxacin demonstrated potent activity across a broad range of pathogens. The ability to treat infections including those caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus [...]

Victoria Robinson, Ph.D., an associate professor in UConn’s Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, has received a promising project award from the UConn/Yale PITCH program to study a novel way of inhibiting bacterial activity and survival in hosts ... more Using biomolecular nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), it is possible to study complex biomolecules like DNA, RNA and proteins to determine their structure. Jeffery Hoch, Ph.D., a UConn Health professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Biophysics, has received funding to study the application of a non-Fourier method to biomolecular NMR to better handle large, less stable and more disordered [...]

Yale Cancer Center has launched the Yale Center for Immuno-Oncology. The new center will build on YCC’s international leadership in immunobiology, cancer immunology, and development of novel cancer immunotherapies. It is a partnership between YCC and the department of Immunobiology at Yale University. “This new center gives us the chance to work more collaboratively and efficiently with our world-renowned scientists and faculty to address scientific questions in Immuno-Oncology,” said Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, chief of Medical Oncology at YCC, and interim director of YCIO. “We hope we can transform the way we treat people affected by cancer by generating [...]

THREAD provides features researchers need to design, launch and provide proper oversight of remotely captured data from patients.THREAD is a full-featured, proprietary platform enabling biopharma, CROs, and academic researchers to capture data from patients in between or in lieu of clinic visits. From ePRO to Virtual Trials, THREAD offers eConsent, ePRO, eDROs, sensors, surveys, notifications, and telehealth all in one, easy-to-use platform. more

Alexion Pharmaceuticals reports that the pivotal Phase 3 study of ALXN1210, the Company’s investigational long-acting C5 complement inhibitor, demonstrated non-inferiority to Soliris® (eculizumab) in complement inhibitor treatment-naïve patients with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria based on the co-primary endpoints of transfusion avoidance and normalization of lactate dehydrogenase levels, a direct marker of complement-mediated hemolysis in PNH. The study also demonstrated non-inferiority on all four key secondary endpoints: percentage change from baseline in LDH levels, change from baseline in quality of life as assessed by the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy (FACIT)-Fatigue scale, proportion of patients with breakthrough hemolysis, and proportion of patients [...]

Branford's BioXcel Therapeutics has completed an initial public offering of its stock. The company offered 5.45 million shares of its common stock at a price of $11 per share, raising $60 million in gross proceeds. Proceeds from the IPO will be used to fund the Phase 2 testing of the company’s two most advanced drug candidates: BXCL501 and BXCL701. About $42 million of the total amount raised through the IPO will be used for Phase II research, with much of the remaining money slated to be used for working capital and for general corporate purposes, according to the company’s SEC filing. more