11-Oct-2006 - US drug heavyweight Pfizer is pushing through into the increasingly profitable vaccine market with the purchase of privately held UK firm PowderMed for an undisclosed sum.
11-Oct-2006 - Raylo Chemical says that it has reduced its manufacturing cycles by up to 20 per cent and as a result saved hundreds of thousands of dollars per year after it installed new pH sensing technology.
10-Oct-2006 - Cardinal Health says it is experiencing a "robust market" for its cell line engineering technology, as it attracts the attention of pharma giant Wyeth and executes capacity expansion plans its for full service offerings in the field.
10-Oct-2006 - Reaxa has chose the recent CphI to announce it is developing a new addition to its range of scavenging resins that it claims allows a huge reduction in product loss in the process of precious metals clean-up.
04-Oct-2006 - Indian biopharmaceutical company Wockhardt has signed a deal with Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation (MIDC) to establish a special economic zone (SEZ) in Aurangabad, India, in order to expand its manufacturing capabilities.
04-Oct-2006 - Following numerous manufacturing failures, Discovery Laboratories believes it has resolved the stability issues that have plagued Surfaxin, its experimental respiratory treatment for infants, and is now seeking a meeting with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to address its concerns.
03-Oct-2006 - The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued new advice to aid manufacturers in developing safe and effective cell-based viral vaccines, hoping it can modernise America's manufacturing network and speed up production.
03-Oct-2006 - A majority stake in Irish biotechnology contract services firm Archport has been snapped up by German-based Chemie Uetikon as the bio-outsourcing market heats up.
28-Sep-2006 - With the first clinical trial of its cell culture-based seasonal influenza vaccine commencing in the US, Sanofi Pasteur has demonstrated the production scale potential of a cell line in a successful bioreactor run of 20,000L.
27-Sep-2006 - Paxonix, a supplier of packaging management software, and Global Vision, which provides automated proofreading software, have formed a partnership to offer pharma companies a single platform solution for drug package management.
26-Sep-2006 - The UK subsidiary of Nicholas Piramal (NPIL) is working on a new catalyst-based racemisation technology called SCRAM that delivers significantly improved process yields in the production of chiral amines and alcohols, cutting cost and environmental waste.
26-Sep-2006 - Ferro Pfanstiehl Laboratories has commissioned a new validated current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) supercritical fluid-based particle engineering pilot facility, offering sizing, purification and formulation services to its pharmaceutical customers.
25-Sep-2006 - Moving from egg-based production of vaccines to the use of cell-culture technologies in existing manufacturing plants is cheaper and quicker than building new facilities to handle a flu pandemic within the next five years, new research suggests.
21-Sep-2006 - A biotech consortium led by consultants BioPharm Services has been awarded a Collaborative Research & Development grant from the UK government, helping biopharmaceutical producers bring new products from development to manufacture.
19-Sep-2006 - Canadian firm Bioxel has manufactured the first industrial-scale current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) batch of its key intermediate for docetaxel, the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) of Sanofi-Aventis's blockbuster chemotherapy drug Taxotere, whose first patents will expire at the end of 2007.
19-Sep-2006 - Cardinal Health has been given the green light from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to start manufacturing the first commercial drug at its new sterile facility in North Carolina.
18-Sep-2006 - Nabi Biopharmaceuticals has obtained the exclusive rights to use a plasma protein purification technology from ProMetic Life Sciences in the large-scale development and manufacture of its hyperimmune products, cutting production costs and increasing yield.
14-Sep-2006 - Successful technology transfer and effective management can help avoid disappointment with contract manufacturing arrangements, which often fail to live up to pharmaceutical company expectations.
14-Sep-2006 - A small spin-out company formed by the University of Colorado has been awarded a $850,000 (€670,000) grant from the US government to develop a dry powder inhalable version of Nabi's investigational injectable vaccine for nicotine addiction, boosting the product's appeal by eliminating needles.
13-Sep-2006 - Biotechnology firm Codexis says it has reached an important development milestone in its effort to design a biocatalytic process to produce a key intermediate for a Schering-Plough drug, reducing manufacturing costs and environmental waste.
13-Sep-2006 - The majority of pharmaceutical manufacturers who have adopted the lean manufacturing model are not satisfied with their results according to a new survey, raising questions about the efficacy of a system popular in the automotive and hi-tech industries.
31-Aug-2006 - The recovery that has taken packaging and processing machinery company IMA to profitability in 2006 has continued, helped by new opportunities in the biotech sector and a strong growth in generics.
24-Aug-2006 - Strong demand for anti-cancer cytotoxic active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) has led Nicholas Piramal (NPIL) Pharma to upgrade infrastructure and hire more staff at its high potency substances (HPS) facility in Grangemouth.
23-Aug-2006 - Despite its consolidation, the competitive consumable sector still offers potential for rapid growth and better profits in the biopharmaceutical industry, while contract bioprocessing services will be increasingly in demand, according to a new market report by D&MD Publications titled "The Bioprocessing Industry - Increasing Capacity, Production, and Efficiency."
23-Aug-2006 - For the first time Merck has opened the doors of its under-construction manufacturing plant in North Carolina to public officials, boasting it will eventually contribute about two-thirds of its annual live-virus vaccine production.