China R&D Reader

Millipore Corporation, a leading life science company, and Merck & Co. Inc., a global pharmaceutical and chemicals company, entered into a definitive agreement under which Merck will acquire all outstanding shares of common stock of Millipore for US$107 per share in cash, or a total transaction value, including net debt, of approximately €5.3 billion (US$7.2 [...]

Pricing pressures, primarily for large-scale production of biologics is causing the typically North American and European industry to now include Asia.
The biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing industry has long been established in North America and Western Europe, where contractors have been producing biologic clinical trial material and commercial products for biotechnology companies for more than a decade. [...]

There was a sharp slowdown in pharmaceutical outsourcing in the last six months which “really caught a lot of people by surprise”, according to Jim Miller of outsourcing consultancy PharmSource, in his annual review of the sector at the Interphex show in New York.
For the contract research industry, which spans clinical research and early R&D [...]

SGS Life Science Services, the  CRO division of Swiss testing firm SGS, expanded its microbiology testing laboratory in Shanghai, China to offer cGMP compliant API testing services for method development and validation.
The laboratory comprises 700 square metres of floor space and houses 27 full-time analytical staff. It offers current good manufacturing (cGMP) practice standard microbiology, stability and endotoxin [...]

Quintiles Transnational, the Durham company that helps drugmakers test and sell new medicines, gets its business from an industry that is trying to ensure its future by shrinking and consolidating.
Drug development is also undergoing significant changes. But Dennis Gillings, Quintiles’ founder and chief executive, sees opportunity as GlaxoSmithKline cuts costs and jobs, Pfizer buys Wyeth [...]

US-based MPI Research and China’s Shanghai Medicilon have formed a joint venture in preclinical services, as they position themselves to cash in on what is a budding market sector in China.
Coined Medicilon-MPI Preclinical Research, the new venture will be based at the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Shanghai until later this year, when operations will be [...]