Drug-resistant superbug highlights need for new antibiotics

A new superbug equipped with a gene that renders the current generation of antibiotics useless has begun to spread around the globe. The bacteria--which is armed with the NDM-1 gene--has been found in close to 200 patients in south Asia as well as the UK, raising the prospect that it will soon appear in other countries as well. MRSA has already raised fears about drug-resistant bacteria, spurring a lineup of biotech companies to start work on a new generation of bacteria-fighters. But...

India takes center stage as biopharma booms

New Jersey may still be America's medicine chest, but India is fast becoming the world's medicine plant. As Big Pharma turns to outsourcing to shed costs--and India's homegrown pharma industry turns out more and more of the world's generic meds--the subcontinent's drug output is growing fast. Some 13 percent growth is expected this year, the New York Times reports, to just over $24 billion. And R&D ops are also growing at a fast pace....

Eisai blueprints new R&D center in India

Eisai is blueprinting its first drug R&D center outside of Japan, with plans to invest $50 million in a new venture in India which will recruit 100 people to develop new therapeutics for the global market. The research staff--which will focus on formulation development---will include about 20 scientists, according to a report in India's Financial Express. "The formulation development R&D wing is expected to go commercial next year," Eisai Knowledge Centre president Sanjit Singh Lamba...

HHS report underscores big shift to foreign drug trials

A new report from the inspector general of HHS highlights just how dependent drug developers have become on overseas clinical trials. And the New York Times raises some serious questions over the kind of regulatory oversight, or lack of it, that foreign drug trials are subject to. According to the HHS report, 80 percent of all the drugs approved in 2008 relied on foreign trials to some extent, with 78 percent of all enrollees recruited at foreign sites. And a total of 10 new drugs were approved...

Indian biotechs shift focus to new collaboration deals

India's biotech industry is reporting a surge of new drug development collaborations as Big Pharma companies remodel their R&D strategies and look to cut costs and share risk. And the Indian developers are brokering lower research costs for an inside track on some early-stage programs. "Partnerships now range from discovery to early clinical development, which have significant upsides even for the partnering firms," said Dr. CSN Murthy, the CEO of Aurigene Discovery Technologies, in an...

Boom spurs India’s biotech industry to hatch expansion plans

After seeing a painful contraction during the worldwide economic downturn, India's biotech industry reports that it's booming again, with revenue shooting up by more than half over the past year. And a leading biotech executive in the subcontinent, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, says that the industry is poised for another big leap in the year ahead as international developers look to India for low-cost drug discovery and manufacturing work. "India has emerged as an attractive market for the...