NC Biotech News

  • Bayer to site North American bee-care headquarters at its Clayton site.
  • Deborah Dunsire, M.D., couldn’t have known when she prepared her closing remarks for the 2012 CED Life Science Conference in Raleigh how accurately they would sum up the two-day talk-and-network fest. Dunsire, president and CEO of Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company, riffed on the Wizard of Oz “This isn’t Kansas anymore” theme. And it had been made abundantly clear from speakers and panelists addressing the record crowd exceeding 950 throughout the conference that things aren’t as they once were.
  • Sanofi CEO Christopher Viehbacher, the opening speaker for the 2012 CED Life Science Conference, laid the groundwork with a call for innovation and collaboration. He told the audience that biopharma R&D costs in the U.S. alone tote up $100 billion a year to produce 20 to 30 new Food and Drug Administration approvals. The payback per R&D dollar spent, he said, is 70 cents.
  • Partnering was a big survival topic for many attending the 2012 CED Life Science Conference last week, and that has always been a hallmark of the North Carolina Biotechnology Center’s success as a statewide driver of life-science development. The Biotech Center and NCBIO (the North Carolina Biosciences Organization) have staged partnering sessions for years to let entrepreneurs, investors and blue-chip life-science giants exchange dance cards and explore possible deals.
  • Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center’s Biotech Place research and innovation center officially opened today with Gov. Bev Perdue joining other civic, business and health-care leaders to cut the ceremonial ribbon in downtown Winston-Salem’s Piedmont Triad Research Park.
  • Visit the North Carolina Biotechnology Center’s Funding Gatewaypage to get more information on funding announcements, links to opportunity search databases, and grant development tips. Grant Deadlines Deadline: 3/15/12 Agency: North Carolina Biotechnology Center Program: Biotechnology Event Sponsorship
  • Moise Khayrallah, Ph.D. You always gotta wonder what’s “nex” with Moise Khayrallah, Ph.D., and his company-building comrades.
  • Agricultural conglomerate BASF , which announced in January that it would establish its global Plant Science headquarters in the Research Triangle Park, said today it will invest $33 million to expand its R&D facilities in RTP.
  • 2:15 pm A big thank you to the more than 950 people who made or annual celebration of life science a success. The team at CED had been a fantastic partner for this event for 21 years. > 1:55 pm Deborah Dunsire of Millennium echoes a phrase i've heard several times at this conference. Inflection point.
  • Visit the North Carolina Biotechnology Center’s Funding Gateway page to get more information on funding announcements, links to opportunity search databases, and grant development tips. Grant Deadlines Deadline: 3/23/12 Agency: Motorola Solutions Foundation Program: Innovation Generation Grants
  • Raleigh therapeutics company Katharos is the only North Carolina life-science company among the 42 companies chosen in the first two rounds of selection to make a presentation at the 2012 Southeast Venture Conference Feb. 29 to March 1 in Tysons Corner, Va.
  • Visit the North Carolina Biotechnology Center’s Funding Gateway page to get more information on funding announcements, links to opportunity search databases, and grant development tips. Grant Deadlines Deadline: 3/5/12 (Targeted Partnerships; Research, Evaluation and Technical Assistance (RETA), including STEM Education Resource Collaboratory);12/18/12 (Targeted Partnerships; Research, Evaluation and Technical Assistance (RETA))
  •     LipiFlow clears lubricating glands beneath eyelid   TearScience is on a tear.
  • Procrastination could become painful if you don’t sign up for a face-to-face meeting with corporate or venture investors by the end of the day Wednesday, February 9. At 11:59 p.m. that day, registration closes for NCBiotech Partnering 2012, the biggest such opportunity ever put together by the North Carolina Biotechnology Center to let the state’s life-science entrepreneurs talk about deals with those who can make deals.
  • Visit the North Carolina Biotechnology Center’s Funding Gateway page to get more information on funding announcements, links to opportunity search databases, and grant development tips!
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  • Robert (Bob) Ingram Who do you consider the most excellent life-science people and organizations in the Piedmont Triad?
  • BASF Plant Science researchers study stress-tolerant crops. Courtesy of BASF.
  • Charlotte-based merchant bank Bourne Partners, an adviser and investor in the Swiss specialty pharmaceutical company Covis Pharma, assisted in Covis’ acquisition of U.S. and Puerto Rico rights to GlaxoSmithKline drugs Fortaz, Zinacef, Lanoxin, Parnate and Zantac Injection. More
  • A young biopharmaceutical company that moved its headquarters from Miami to Chapel Hill in 2011 has landed a $250,000 loan from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. Heat Biologics, a clinical-stage immunotherapy company with a unique next-generation drug platform initially targeting cancer, received the maximum available from the Biotech Center’s Strategic Growth Loan program after an extensive review of the technical and commercial merits of the company’s R&D plans.