18-May-2004 - Companies filing for approval of new medicines may soon be forced to carry out analysis work on impurities in their products if they refer to outdated monographs, according to the European Commission.
17-May-2004 - A prototype chip-based laboratory developed by a German company could reduce the time it takes to carry out the DNA amplification required for polymerase chain reactions to five minutes.
12-May-2004 - The UK government has confirmed that it plans to bring in new legislation to deal with animal extremists, although the scope of the measures is still under consideration, reports Phil Taylor.
12-May-2004 - Switzerland's Metrohm has developed a new delivery system for reagents used in ion chromatography that is designed to reduce wastage, improve safety in the lab and does away with the need to dispose of spent eluent cartridges.
12-May-2004 - Switzerland's Metrohm has developed a new delivery system for reagents used in ion chromatography that is designed to reduce wastage, improve safety in the lab and does away with the need to dispose of spent eluent cartridges.
06-May-2004 - The number of animals tests needed for new chemicals could be reduced significantly by the use of assays tests developed by researchers at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. And this should be welcome news for companies facing the testing requirements of new European legislation.
06-May-2004 - Two years into a major drive to exit the drug development sector and reinvent itself as an informatics pure-play, Germany's LION bioscience trimmed its net losses in the 12 months ended 31 March to €22 million, in line with its interim projections.
06-May-2004 - Swiss life sciences supplier Tecan has reported flat growth in sales but higher profits in the first quarter of 2004, which it said was largely the result of the restructuring measures implemented in 2003.
29-Apr-2004 - A UK-based specialist in antimicrobial coating technology, BioCote, has entered into an agreement with Comark to develop more hygienic handheld thermometers and data loggers. The new products are intended for use in the pharmaceutical and food industries that make use of aseptic production processes.
21-Apr-2004 - IntelliChem, a developer of electronic laboratory notebooks (ELN) for the drug discovery and development industry, has launched a new ELN platform that can be used right across any pharmaceutical or biotechnology company.
13-Apr-2004 - The US Food and Drug Administration is planning to hold a meeting in June to re-examine its regulations on electronic records and signatures, used to generate the audit trail in the food and drug industries, to examine whether some elements are putting an unnecessary burden on industry.
05-Apr-2004 - Beckman Coulter, the leading manufacturer of instrument systems and automated laboratory processes, has launched two new laboratory automation workstations which promise to set new standards in accuracy and precision of assays.
31-Mar-2004 - Drug companies are waking up to the notion that the environment a researcher works in - whether in drug discovery or the quality control lab - is a crucial factor in determining their productivity and creativity. And they have started to embrace new flexible workspaces that do away with the limitations of traditional buildings, reports Phil Taylor.
24-Mar-2004 - The opening up of the European market for thermal cyclers earlier this month has been followed swiftly by the launch of a new product in the category from Germany's MWG Biotech, reports Phil Taylor.
22-Mar-2004 - Switzerland's Integra Biosciences has completed a study that demonstrates how its recently introduced cell culture vessel can improve the yield of recombinant proteins.
22-Mar-2004 - A new machine from Ultrasonic Scientific promises to revolutionise the analysis of chemical reactions by requiring only a tiny amount of sample, an important consideration when testing expensive biologic compounds.
22-Mar-2004 - A brand new chemical genomics facility, one of the first academic small molecule screening facilities in Europe, has been opened by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) in Heidelberg, Germany, writes Wai Lang Chu.
18-Mar-2004 - Fisher Scientific and Apogent Technologies are to merge in a $3.7 billion (€3.01bn) deal that will double Fisher's footprint in the high-growth life sciences equipment market, reports Phil Taylor.
10-Mar-2004 - MOCON has decided to expand out of its primary business of manufacturing instrumentation and break into new territory in providing testing and consulting services.
10-Mar-2004 - As the annual Pittcon laboratory analysis showcase gets underway this week, a string of products with applications in drug discovery have been introduced, including new tools for proteomics and the first commercial analysis system based on electromolecular propulsion.
09-Mar-2004 - US company Waters Corporation will this week unveil its next-generation liquid chromatograph, said to significantly improve productivity in the lab by giving scientists chromatographic run times up to nine times shorter than the fastest current HPLC systems.
19-Feb-2004 - Germany's Heraeus Noblelight has acquired UK company Cathodeon in a move that allows it to broaden the range of optic lamps it supplies for analytical machines.
18-Feb-2004 - UK laboratory equipment specialist Lab-Plant says it can bring process automation within the reach of the majority of laboratories, pilot plants and mini-production facilities with the launch of its Lab Manager process control computer system.
17-Feb-2004 - In its last set of annual results before being acquired by General Electric, Amersham of the UK reported lower profits last year as currency effects bit into the company's bottom line, but saw its drug discovery unit move into the black ahead of schedule in the second half.
17-Feb-2004 - The European Commission has given Europe a boost in the field of structural genomics, awarding the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and its partners €10 million to create a common platform for researchers working in the field of biological crystallography.