Life Science Company and Industry News Briefs

Researchers at the University of Washington and the University of California, Riverside have received $2 million in the form of a four-year grant from the NIH to identify the 3-D structure of the parasite that causes malaria, Plasmodium's, genome during its erythrocytic cycle. According to News Medical, this cycle takes place over 48 hours and can repeat for a number of days or even weeks in humans.

Lab suppliers interested in marketing life science solutions and university lab equipment at Atlanta life science marketing events may want to take a closer look at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health as a potential sales market. In 2010, the Rollins School of Public Health opened a teaching and research building named for Claudia Nance Rollins. According to a recent article in Emory Magazine, the Rollins family gave $50 million to the construction of the building and this gift was the catalyst for over $170 million given to the Rollins School of Public Health during the Emory campaign. About $90 million of that funding went towards building the new facility, which includes three floors of lab space.

The eHealth Research Institute sponsored a meeting at the BioScience Research Collaborative facility this June to bring biotech influencers in Texas together to discuss how the biotech industry in the state can work together to improve and develop the statewide industry and bring better care to patients.

In yesterday’s blog, Biotechnology Calendar, Inc. spotlighted two schools receiving funding from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Funding totaled $2.5 million and will be given to a network of nine institutions searching for a cure for MS including the Mayo Clinic, the University of California at San Francisco, Stony Brook University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Children’s Hospital Boston, Texas Children’s Hospital, Loma Linda University, the State University of New York at Buffalo and Massachusetts General Hospital.

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society announced a commitment of $2.5 million to the Network of Pediatric MS Centers, a network of nine centers that includes the Mayo Clinic, the University of California at San Francisco, Stony Brook University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Children’s Hospital Boston, Texas Children’s Hospital, Loma Linda University, the State University of New York at Buffalo and Massachusetts General Hospital. According to PR Newswire, the funding will be used to research the cause of MS by investigating risk factors for the disease in children close to the time of exposure.

Hyundai Hope On Wheels, a non-profit organization of Hyundai dealers in Washington, D.C., has awarded MedStar Georgetown University Hospital a $75,000 Hyundai Clinical Award. In 2013, Hope On Wheels will give a total of $14 million to children’s hospitals and expects to surpass $72 million in donations since 1998. According to WUSA 9, the award will go to Dr. Aziza T. Shad for developing the Clinical Psychosocial Distress Screening Initiative for pediatric cancer patients and their families.

After the United States invested $14.5 billion in the Human Genome Project, the work has paid off with a $966 billion economic impact on the country and $59 billion in federal tax revenue. According to The News Journal, dozens of companies have used the information discovered in the project to develop new diagnostic tests and medicines based on gene variants connected to certain diseases. The Human Genome Project has triggered a “new era” in the life sciences, said Greg Lucier, CEO of Life Technologies Corp.

While the biotechnology and medical-device industries are growing as a whole nationwide, Massachusetts added over 8,000 jobs in these sectors in the past five years. Even more interestingly, the life science industry’s employment rate has increased 12% across the country since 2000, but Massachusetts’ grew at a rate exceeding twice that number. The Massachusetts Life Science Center has a great deal to do with life science employment in the Boston area. Lawmakers continue to fund the center generously given its healthy economic impact on the state.

A new report by Markets and Markets examines the growth of the biostimulants industry and expects the market to reach $2,241.0 million by 2018. The growth in consumer demand for biostimulants is the driving factor in the increased valuation of the market. Some important factors influencing demand are the environmental health and organic origin of biostimulants. The Compounded Annual Growth Rate of the biostimulants market is expected to be 12.5% over the next five years.