R&D

A massive, international study to find and evaluate potential Parkinson's disease biomarkers has finished enrolling a first group of 600 Parkinson's patients and controls.

This week, Tocagen began enrolling patients in a Phase I trial in which its Toca 511 cancer drug is delivered using a visually guided device called ClearPoint, the first such device of its kind, that allows for a more concentrated delivery, increasing the drug's effectiveness as much as threefold.

Researchers at Harvard and Boston University have developed a surgical technique to surmount one of the trickiest of drug-delivery obstacles--the blood-brain barrier.

Late last year Regado Biosciences came up with a big $51 million round that served as a kind of down payment on a planned $120 million study of its lead therapy--an anticoagulant that adds a promising "real-time" therapeutic tool to dial the effect up and down in order to control bleeding risks. Not willing to take any offers on the table, though, Regado still had to come up with the rest of the money. And now it's sprung a $75 million IPO designed to take it all the way through Phase III.

Using MRI scans to measure tissue atrophy in the thalamus can accurately predict multiple sclerosis, according to new research, pointing the way to a more reliable biomarker than current methods.

AMRI has locked down another 5-year partnership with Japan's Ono Pharmaceutical, agreeing to provide development and manufacturing services for the company's treatments, which include a promising multiple sclerosis drug.