NCBiotech News

Three North Carolina companies joined the prestigious list of participants in the 2018 MedTech Innovator Accelerator and Showcase programs. The Los Angeles-based non-profit is a global competition and accelerator for medical device, digital health and diagnostic companies.

Research Triangle Park-based AgBiome, which harnesses plant microbiomes to develop novel crop protection products, has secured $65 million in Series C financing.

Locus Biosciences, a fast-emerging RTP company using genetic tricks to whack drug-resistant bacteria, has acquired EpiBiome, a young California firm with a high-speed technology platform that will add even more focus to Locus.

Shareholders of Durham-based BioCryst Pharmaceuticals have rejected a January 2018 merger agreement with Pennsylvania-based Idera Pharmaceuticals, in a special vote that will keep BioCryst in the Triangle.

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center has named Mary Beth Thomas, Ph.D., to the position of senior vice president, science and business development.

KeraNetics of Winston-Salem has reached a merger agreement with Microchips Biotech of Lexington, Mass., to create a new company, Keratin Biosciences.

LabCorp, the Burlington-based diagnostics and drug-development conglomerate, will add digital workflows into its anatomic pathology services under a new collaboration with Royal Philips, a global health technology company.

Xeomin, a botulinum toxin similar to Botox that is used cosmetically to smooth frown lines between the eyebrows, is becoming an ever more versatile product for Raleigh-based Merz North America. The FDA just approved it to treat chronic sialorrhea, or excessive drooling, in adults. 

North Carolina’s reputation as the global epicenter for contract research organizations (CROs) has been boosted with the Wilmington opening of an office by German CRO proinnovera GmbH.

A new study conducted by researchers from Duke University, MIT and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University shows that sound waves are capable of rapidly and efficiently separating circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from blood.

Even the best scientific innovation can be flattened by public distrust. That was the major reminder from Kevin Folta, Ph.D., a professor of horticultural sciences at the University of Florida, to dozens of people gathered at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center Wednesday. 

Professionals involved in the field of precision health have until July 5 to get the $599 early-registration price to attend the September 24 and 25 Precision Medicine World Conference 2018 (PMWC) at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Burlington-based LabCorp has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market a diagnostic test that can detect four viruses in donated blood plasma used in making biologic therapies.

A British company with U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park has become the first to receive U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for a prescription drug derived from marijuana.

Durham-based genome editing company Precision BioSciences announced that it has raised $110 million to further the development of its proprietary ARCUS genome editing platform.