Narrow Results

Impressive 33% Growth in S’pore’s Biomedical Manufacturing Output.

More Funding for S’pore’s Stem Cell Projects.

What is Benfotiamine?

Opioid Withdrawal Symptoms Trigger Identified.

Coral Reefs Doing Sturdily.

INDIA — Asianhhm.com introduces innovative print and digital advertising solutions.

INDONESIA — IMCD acquires leading Indonesian food ingredients distributor Alam Subur.

JAPAN — VITAL Corporation to distribute Imagine Eyes' rtx1™ Adaptive Optics Retinal Camera in Japan.

SINGAPORE — Global threat of multi-drug-resistant Tuberculosis.

SINGAPORE — APAC breeding ground for Anti-bacterial household product innovation.

AUSTRALIA — In defence of the humble ant, champion of biodiversity.

AUSTRALIA — Senz Oncology initiates VAL-1000 clinical trial in patients with acute leukemias.

AUSTRALIA — ABRAXANE^® demonstrates significant improvement in advanced melanoma patients.

AUSTRALIA — Alzheimer's, cancer and rare disease research to benefit from landmark MRC-AstraZeneca compound collaboration.

AUSTRALIA — Nine Sydney researchers to receive funding for biomedical research projects.

AMERICAS — How blind mole rats keep cancer at bay.

AMERICAS — No assembly required for new micro particles.

AMERICAS — Caribbean sardine collapse linked to climate change.

EUROPE — Radioembolization using sir-spheres significantly improves overall survival for patients with inoperable colorectal cancer.

Amplified detection of nucleic acid by G-quadruplex based hybridization chain reaction.

Dow opens Photovoltaics Films Application Lab in Shanghai.

Researchers discover molecular mechanisms of left-right asymmetric control in the sea urchin.

China mulls new rule on human genetic research.

China to phase out organ donation from executed criminals.

Charles River Laboratories to expand research models business in China.

Chinese Science Academy Chief urges seizing on new technological revolution.

BGI contributes genome sequencing and bioinformatics expertise.

Taiwan government to encourage formation of smaller biotech funds.

INDIA – Lack of access to technology ‘hampers detection of substandard drugs’.

JAPAN – Daiichi Sankyo announces development of nucleic acid treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy utilizing proprietary technology.

SINGAPORE – IBN creates unlimited source of human kidney cells.

SINGAPORE – Dyesol and Singapore's NTU sign agreement.

THE PHILIPPINES – Global biotech/GM crop plantings increase 100-fold from 1996.

AUSTRALIA – Phosphagenics further expands pain portfolio.

AUSTRALIA – Primary Health Care signs Australia distribution agreement for iGeneScreen™ prenatal test.

AUSTRALIA – Folic acid in pregnancy linked with reduced autism risk.

AUSTRALIA – Phylogica and Bio-Link collaborate to commercialize anti-inflammatory Phylomers.

AUSTRALIA – ABRAXANE^® plus gemcitabine improves survival in Phase III study of patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.

CANADA – Verisante Technology, Inc. announces first sales of aura, a revolutionary medical device for the detection of skin cancer.

EUROPE – Project eyes robust medical technology for poor countries.

UNITED KINGDOM – Asthma sufferers have more lung fungi.

UNITED KINGDOM – Pioneering drug discovery gets major funding to move to next stage.

UNITED STATES – Gilead's sofosbuvir for hepatitis C meets primary endpoint in fourth pivotal Phase III study.

UNITED STATES – Eleven Biotherapeutics publishes data on EBI-005, a novel IL-1 inhibitor protein for topical treatment of dry eye disease.

UNITED STATES – Phase I/II trial of ADXS-HPV in anal cancer conducted by Brown University Oncology Group.

UNITED STATES – Scopolamine: An old drug with new psychiatric applications.

UNITED STATES – New bioengineered ears look and act like the real thing.

UNITED STATES – To trap a rainbow, slow down light.

UNITED STATES – AB SCIEX responds to milk contamination concerns with new method to detect dicyandiamide.

AUSTRALIA — Childhood CT scans slightly raise cancer risk.

AUSTRALIA — There's a very simple solution to your lack of vitamin D.

INDIA — India develops cheap rotavirus vaccine.

JAPAN — 'Tug of war' method to measure the copy number limits of all genes in budding yeast.

SINGAPORE — SG Austria co-edits just released book on living cell bioencapsulation.

SINGAPORE — Nano Today's 2013 impact factor increases from 15.355 to 17.689.

SINGAPORE — Cholesterol beats coronaviruses, Avian flu and Swine flu.

THE PHILIPPINES — Philippines maps out plan to switch to 100% renewables in 10 years.

EUROPE — Roche launches first sugar-transferase for new glyco-engineering portfolio.

EUROPE — Older liver cancer patients respond to radioembolization equally as well as younger patients.

NORTH AMERICA — Protein helps colon cancer move and invade.

NORTH AMERICA — FDA approval of VIBATIV(R) (telavancin) for the treatment of bacterial pneumonia.

NORTH AMERICA — “On Demand Medical Research” is up and running.

UNITED KINGDOM — Diabetes rises sharply among UK's young adults.

UNITED KINGDOM — 'Mental illness' isn't all about brain chemistry: it's about life.

UNITED KINGDOM — Public to see impact of medical research funding.

Scientists decode the genomic sequence of 700,000-year-old horse.

Researchers reveal subepicardial endothelial cells working as major source for coronary arteries in embryonic ventricle wall.

Chinese 'container hospitals' ready to deploy in Africa.

Asian Cancer Research Group and BGI report new evidence for the genetic bases of liver cancer.

Taiwan technology lifts biomedical collaboration.

SIIC to provide funding to biotech projects.

China Unveils Plan for Basic Science Research.

China Brain Project to Launch Soon, Aiming to Develop Effective Tools for Early Diagnosis of Brain Diseases.

China Pins Hopes on Scientific Innovation.

Sanofi Strategic Health Project Aimed at Improving Community Chronic Disease Management Capabilities.

RegeneRx and Lee's Pharm Announce Acceleration of RGN-259 Development in China.

Institute of Biophysics Research Clarifies Light-harvesting Process in Plants.

High-Tech Program on Microbiome-Based Research Launched in Qingdao.

HONG KONG NEWS – Lenovo Launches its Accelerator Incubator for Early Stage Start-Ups.

The following topics are under this section:

• Preclinical data demonstrates favourable safety profile of novel anti-HER3 antibody
• Phase III clinical trial reveals positive results for cancer immunotherapy in treating the most common form of liver cancer
• Strategic partnership to bring hope to patients with fibrotic and inflammatory diseases
• Hong Kong’s first Mononuclear Cell Bank attains AABB accreditation
• Expanding reach of Biosimilar candidates in Taiwan and Hong Kong
• Developing Novel Cancer Therapies with Greater Precision
• Singapore-based MedTech Start-up raises US$ 4 million in funding
• Asia’s HealthTech Momentum Remains Strong at US$ 5 billion in 2019
• Emergex raises more than US$ 11 million in Series A Round
• Korean-based biotechnology company seals exclusive sales agreement

This paper reviews the creation and the development of biotechnology start-ups in Japan known as "bioventures". In the early 1990s, the Japanese government began to introduce new policies to promote the development of bioventures. Within the span of a decade, the number of bioventures grew five times. However, majority of them continued to operate at the seed or start-up stage. This paper seeks to explore the underdeveloped state of bioventures in Japan, based on the case study method which includes the use of interviews and reviews of several policies and regulations. This paper also compares the development of Japanese biotechnology industry with the biotechnology industry in the US and Europe. This paper concludes that the lack of a sustainable system of funding is the real issue hindering the development of bioventures in Japan.

The ratio of academic scientists to the labor force in Malaysia has increased. However, the contribution of academic scientists to commercialize research discoveries remains limited. Successful research commercialization or university technology transfer requires entrepreneurial effort that may involve skills beyond the traditional roles of academics. The ability to identify the commercial opportunity of research, i.e. entrepreneurial opportunity recognition, has been proven to be a critical skill for an academic entrepreneur. Earlier findings in this area would have been far more useful if the antecedents of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition were recognized. Although self-regulated learning has been inferred to as informal entrepreneurship education for academic entrepreneurs, there has been a lack of evidence on how it influences their academic entrepreneurship performance. This paper examined the characteristics of academic entrepreneurs and the key success factors, whether academics’ opportunity recognition ability is influenced by their self-regulated learning behavior. A quantitative research design was employed based on a case study of a technological university in Malaysia involving 115 academic entrepreneurs. Structural equation modeling analysis results revealed that academics’ opportunity recognition and social capital are the most important determinants of their academic entrepreneurship performance. The efficiency of the Technology Transfer Office and the ease of securing funding play influential roles too, but to a smaller extent. Most importantly, opportunity recognition is strengthened by self-regulated learning, through frequent deliberate practices in information and knowledge seeking that enable scientists to be more creative and innovative in translating research into marketable products and technology.

In this paper, we compare first generation entrepreneurs with entrepreneurs whose parents were self-employed. To test the hypotheses, we use PSED II data on nascent entrepreneurs to explore the effects of parental self-employment (PSE) on various start-up activities associated with planning and organization, and on funding structure. Overall, results show a difference in patterns of behavior between first generation entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs whose parents were self-employed, supporting the notion of intergenerational learning. Specifically, results indicate a positive relationship between PSE and early deployment of startup activities and a positive relationship between PSE and attaining informal external funding. Post hoc analyses for gender differences show that (a) the relationship between PSE and startup activities exists primarily for men and (b) gender differences exist in the effects of PSE on funding structure: for women, PSE is positively associated with the use of personal savings, whereas for men, PSE is positively associated with use of external informal funding. The results of our findings and their implications are discussed.

University patenting has become an important research outcome in the past few decades. There has been an increase in the number of faculty patents and individual scientists listed as inventors on patent applications. The effective allocation of funding to universities is of great concern to policymakers. In this paper, we evaluate whether an increase in government funding for academic scientists enhances the performance of researchers in both scientific publications and academic patents or if this merely increases publications in the academic realm. We provide summary statistics from nanotechnology data in Quebec, compare it with other provinces in Canada, and build econometric models of various publication, patenting and grant databases. The analysis illustrates the strong relationship between funding and publication productivity as well as the citation impact of publications. In the light of research performance in patenting activities of academic researchers, this empirical study finds a strong influence on the number of patents. Moreover, increased funding appears to strengthen the citation impact of patents in Quebec, which affects the citation impact of patenting activities.

With reference to the newly emerging climate finance architecture under the post-Kyoto framework, this paper argues that a stronger focus must be placed on how the funds are to be spent in the recipient countries according to different needs, an issue we call the 'mode of funding'. We make our points based on a noncooperative two-country framework in which an industrialized and a developing country decide on mitigation in the first stage and on adaptation in the second stage of the game. The funding instruments recently agreed upon in UN climate negotiations are modeled in a stylized manner that highlights their specific modes of funding, such as tying the industrialized countries' transfer payments to a reduction in the developing countries' potential or actual loss and damages, mitigation or adaptation costs. We show that the various modes of funding may give rise to strategic choices when it comes to the countries' mitigation efforts. Moreover, some such modes (compensation for actual loss and damages and for adaptation costs) fall short of two essential minimum requirements for enabling Pareto improvements for donor and recipient alike and thus cannot guarantee sustained voluntary funding. We also demonstrate that the presumed equivalence of sequencing the decision on mitigation before adaptation compared to deciding simultaneously on mitigation and adaptation does not hold if different modes of climate funding are considered.

This chapter reviews the creation and the development of biotechnology start-ups in Japan known as “bioventures”. In the early 1990s, the Japanese government began to introduce new policies to promote the development of bioventures. Within the span of a decade, the number of bioventures grew five times. However, majority of them continued to operate at the seed or start-up stage. This chapter seeks to explore the underdeveloped state of bioventures in Japan, based on the case study method which includes the use of interviews and reviews of several policies and regulations. This chapter also compares the development of the biotechnology industry in Japan with that in the US and Europe. This chapter concludes that the lack of a sustainable system of funding is the real issue hindering the development of bioventures in Japan.

In emerging and developing countries, the development of soft skills has been less emphasized. Attempts were made to get funding on the seed rounds by the founders, investors care the most to get the desired return on their investment, and employees are interested in securing their job compensation with minimum effort level. As a part of a firm’s culture, there are essential soft factors which can establish a strong drive for succeeding and creating a high-commitment culture between founders, investors, employees, which can shape a vibrant culture of survival, growth, and success in a firm. The present study aimed to evaluate financial toughness, share option, networking, and performance management. In fact, the main hypothesis is whether startups with these attributes rely less on external funding or not. After collecting data from active startups in the Iranian startup ecosystem, no evidence was available regarding a strong association between the existence of these soft factors in the firm and the firm’s survival/success rate.

The ratio of academic scientists to the labor force in Malaysia has increased. However, the contribution of academic scientists to commercialize research discoveries remains limited. Successful research commercialization or university technology transfer requires entrepreneurial effort that may involve skills beyond the traditional roles of academics. The ability to identify the commercial opportunity of research, i.e. entrepreneurial opportunity recognition, has been proven to be a critical skill for an academic entrepreneur. Earlier findings in this area would have been far more useful if the antecedents of entrepreneurial opportunity recognition were recognized. Although self-regulated learning has been inferred to as informal entrepreneurship education for academic entrepreneurs, there has been a lack of evidence on how it influences their academic entrepreneurship performance. This paper examined the characteristics of academic entrepreneurs and the key success factors, whether academics’ opportunity recognition ability is influenced by their self-regulated learning behavior. A quantitative research design was employed based on a case study of a technological university in Malaysia involving 115 academic entrepreneurs. Structural equation modeling analysis results revealed that academics’ opportunity recognition and social capital are the most important determinants of their academic entrepreneurship performance. The efficiency of the Technology Transfer Office and the ease of securing funding play influential roles too, but to a smaller extent. Most importantly, opportunity recognition is strengthened by self-regulated learning, through frequent deliberate practices in information and knowledge seeking that enable scientists to be more creative and innovative in translating research into marketable products and technology.

This chapter will highlight in a convincing way the true value of your business project proposal to both private and public funding. It will help you get ready and understand step by step what you need to go through in order to succeed in gaining finance to your project. In the book True Storytelling, a model for fundraising is presented based on seven principles. This chapter will expand the model and qualify the statements and questions being asked. It will then appear more like a guide for you and your stakeholders to use as you see fit. True Storytelling plays an important part in helping the process along and manifesting your company story. And as a side effect, it will act as a tool to create changes in the organization.