Novozymes Biopharma’s rAlbumin approved in Japan as MAQUET expands into new market

 

 

Recombumin® Alpha used by MAQUET CARDIOPULMONARY

in a version of the company’s proprietary BIOLINE Coating

 

NOTTINGHAM, UK – February 27, 2013 – Novozymes Biopharma, part of Novozymes A/S, a world leader in bioinnovation, has announced that one of its leading customers has achieved approval of a medical device in Japan using Recombumin^® Alpha - formerly Albucult^®, a recombinant human albumin (rAlbumin) product. Recombumin Alpha is used by MAQUET in a version of the company’s proprietary BIOLINE Coating, which has already received regulatory approval and is being used successfully in many countries around the world. This approval represents yet another landmark registration for Novozymes Biopharma’s Recombumin portfolio and the first for a medical device product in Japan. The use of Recombumin Alpha in MAQUET’s BIOLINE Coating confers a range of unique advantages due to its stable, pure and safe composition, meaning that it can enable manufacturers to streamline their regulatory approval processes and accelerate a product’s time-to-market.

 

Novozymes’ rAlbumins have been assisting MAQUET in developing safe, regulatory compliant products for over 10 years as part of an ongoing strategic partnership between the two companies. The BIOLINE Coating has been developed by MAQUET to improve the biocompatibility of extracorporeal circulation system devices, such as oxygenators, which come into contact with blood during heart surgery. Whether for oxygenators, centrifugal pumps, filters, reservoirs, venous bubble traps, catheters and cannulae, tubes or tubing set accessories, a consistent quality of BIOLINE Coating is supplied for all applications. The use of Recombumin Alpha contained in the version of BIOLINE Coating approved for the Japanese market helps to improve the biocompatibility of these devices, while its unmatched safety and purity profile minimizes the risk of contamination and impurities.

 

Dr. Wolgang Rencken, President and CEO at MAQUET Cardiopulmonary AG comments: “With Novozymes’ rAlbumin, MAQUET is now able to offer our highly biocompatible BIOLINE Coating in Japan. Reducing negative side effects on blood when it comes into contact with foreign surfaces, such as polycarbonates or tubings, has always been one of MAQUET’s focus areas in extracorporeal circulation. We are very happy to offer this advantage to our customers and especially their patients in Japan. ”

 

Dermot Pearson, Marketing Director at Novozymes Biopharma comments, “We are delighted that Recombumin Alpha is a component of a medical device product now approved for the Japanese market. As a business, Novozymes is conscious of the rapidly changing regulatory landscape with regulations becoming increasingly tighter. As a result, we are committed to assisting our partners in developing safe, stable and highly pure products using ingredients which are Q7 compliant.” Dermot continues, “Our long-term relationship as a strategic partner to MAQUET has worked through mutual understanding of the company’s goals and Novozymes’ deep knowledge of the regulatory processes involved in taking product to market.”

 

Novozymes’ rAlbumins are compliant with the National Formulary (NF) rAlbumin human monograph published by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP). The use of Recombumin Alpha offers a range of performance and quality benefits for these applications, including sustainability of supply, improved biocompatibility and GMP compliance. Novozymes’ also ensures batch-to-batch consistency to reduce processing and testing times to drive product efficiency for customers looking for a compliant albumin alternative.

 

For further information on Novozymes Biopharma’s Recombumin portfolio please visit www.biopharma.novozymes.com

 

 

MPS Healthcare backs Cardiff Meds to win their seventeenth National Association of Medical Schools Rugby Cup title

As proud sponsors of Cardiff Medicals Rugby Football Club, MPS Healthcare, Wales' leading recruitment agency for healthcare professionals, is backing the team to win their seventeenth National Association of Medical Schools (NAMS) title, ahead of their first round game. The squad continues their competitive journey with a match against Peninsula RFC in Llanrumney.

Cardiff Medicals RFC has a long running history of success in the NAMS competition, winning 16 titles and holding a record of 13 back to back wins. MPS Healthcare began sponsoring the team, drawn from Cardiff University Medical, Dental, Physiotherapy and Nursing students, last year ahead of their semi final placing.

“We are absolutely delighted to be sponsoring Cardiff Medicals RFC.” commented Alyx Peters, Managing Director of MPS Healthcare, “Not only does the club have a reputation for sporting excellence but it also supports medical students to form life-long friendships. This reflects MPS’ commitment to support Welsh healthcare professionals of the future as well as the present.”

Huw Davies, coach of Cardiff Medicals RFC, added: “We are looking forward to competing in the NAMS tournament, a cup we aim to dominate despite strong historical competition. However, we wouldn't be able to compete in this or other high level competitions without the support of our sponsors, including MPS Healthcare.”

MPS Healthcare, based in Cardiff, has been supplying a range of both temporary and permanent healthcare professions to the NHS and other healthcare providers such as Vale Healthcare, the Ministry of Defence, Spire, Marie Curie and many other charities in Wales for over ten years.For further information, visit: www.mps-healthcare.com.

To follow the success of Cardiff Medicals Rugby Football Club, visit: www.cardiffmedicalsrfc.co.uk

Agency nurses – friend or foe?

London, Friday 25 January 2013 – More often than not, agency healthcare professionals are the first in line for blame when overstretched hospitals experience complications and/or lowered levels of care. However, given the current healthcare situation, are we getting it wrong?

HCL Nursing Managing Director Helen Rudanec has spoken out against recent articles in The Daily Mail and The Telegraph, and states agency staff are an invaluable resource to the NHS, flexing with trusts to accommodate annual leave, training, sickness and absence and provide flexible staffing solutions for vacant posts.

“It’s almost too easy to make agency staff the fall guy in the current resource squeeze. Hospitals are trying desperately to operate at their most efficient level while trying to meet and maintain high levels of service. Stress levels of permanent staff are at an all time high, and cuts are contributing to dangerously low staffing levels and skill shortages, absolutely.” Ms Rudanec says.

“As a business, we are constantly investing in our consultants and candidates to maintain the highest levels of customer service, compliance and in-depth quality management. We promote a culture of excellence, transparency and compliance. Every one of our candidates is registered, qualified, CRB checked as a minimum requirement, and this costs the agency a great deal in time and money.  There is a long list of pre-screening checks and assessments most agencies working with the NHS carry out on all its agency workers prior to working with a client hospital” She said.

The modern workforce in the UK has changed significantly, with latest figures from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC) showing the UK has the highest number of temporary workers in Europe. With over 1.3 million temps working here in the UK, that’s over 5% of the UK workforce and growing.

“Working through an agency as a healthcare professional holds its own challenges and is not for the faint hearted. Our healthcare professionals are consummate professionals with the ability to hit the ground running and cope in any given situation.  They must have the ability to adapt to new environments and must have the experience to cope and operate as part of the team. ”

 “We work in partnership with trusts to keep departments at a safe level of staffing and to plan when flexible staff will be needed. It’s all about working smarter, so the emphasis falls on the importance of organisation and planning, which, as an agency, is our specialty.”

“Yes there are agencies in our market place who charge clients extortionate rates for nurses.  These work outside of the various NHS contracts and they end up paying far more to the nurses than contracted agencies.  Not all nursing agencies operate this way. HCL along with many other agencies offer a fair salary to our workers and a competitive charge to our clients.  We work on a longer term objective and work in partnership with our clients to assist in their daily management of staffing.  Most of the stories regarding agency nurses in the press are all around these high charging off contract agencies and this puts the wrong light on us all.”

Ms Rudanec also pointed out HCL operated on various healthcare framework agreements, designed to standardise healthcare costs, such as Government Procurement Service (GPS) and the London Procurement Programme (LPP).

 

Parliamentary Drop-in Event to Support High Quality Ovarian Cancer Services

By Luke Newman, Senior Account Executive (Kapler Communications - Our Sister Company)

 

On May 9 2005, my Mum, Jen Newman took her last breath after a brave 19 month battle against ovarian cancer. She was diagnosed with the ‘Silent Killer’ in October 2003 and went through three different courses of chemotherapy before the disease spread, in the form of cancerous cells, to her stomach. 

 

As the fifth most common cancer among women in the UK, and one of the hardest cancers to detect, ovarian cancer has raised particular challenges for the policy makers, commissioners and healthcare professionals. Ovacome, a support network for women with ovarian cancer, their families, friends and healthcare professionals is working to raise awareness of ovarian cancer among MPs. Ovacome develops local quality profiles to give parliamentarians key information on the quality of ovarian cancer services in their local area, including the latest data on outcomes of the therapies and on the effectiveness of the services offered to the patients. MPs then use the information to design and execute campaigns for better ovarian cancer services and also ensure that the experiences of women with ovarian cancer are well recorded and highlighted in their campaign to benefit the society.

Ovacome recently organised a ‘drop-in’ briefing event and invited MPs to meet with its members to find out more about ovarian cancer and to receive the regional quality profile. The aim of the program was to raise awareness of the problems that patients encountered during the course of the treatment and to highlight the part of the processes that worked well. It was also aimed at encouraging MPs to take action to tackle ovarian cancer and improve outcomes. As a member of Ovacome, I was also invited to attend the event and to talk to MPs about my experiences with my Mother’s diagnosis and treatment of the cancer.

Louise Bayne the Chief Executive of Ovacome briefed us on the importance of the day and encouraged the members who pointed out the following points to be included in the MP regional profiles:

·         Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer among women in the UK, and one of the harder cancers to detect.  This means that it has been difficult for policy makers, commissioners and healthcare professionals to tackle.

·         The outcomes of ovarian cancer patients living in the UK are still poorer than in comparable countries

·         Improving early diagnosis will be key to improving outcomes.  There is good evidence to show that the UK is a relatively low user of newer cancer drugs, including those for ovarian cancer. 

·         There is variation across the country on the percentage of patients who understood their condition.  Ovarian cancer patients were 10% less likely to be offered information about their condition than all cancers combined, in data from the National Cancer Patient Experience Survey.

Out of the attendees there were few women who volunteered and discussed about their experiences while they fought the disease. One of them had her last chemotherapy 5 days ago, and then there was another woman who has been in remission for 5 years but left with severe walking difficulties. She is unable to work and due to the economic climate she has seen her benefits cut. She is struggling to survive. There was also a woman who survived Ovarian Cancer 25 years ago, who now dedicated her life to fundraising for many cancer charities.

After the group discussion members were given a chance to have a brief discussion with MPs.  I was also able to discuss my Mother’s Ovarian Cancer to a selective few. I talked to Lorely Burt who is Liberal Democrat MP for Solihull recognised the problem of the late diagnosis.  However, from her own research, she claims that every GP will only encounter Ovarian Cancer once in their career. I also had a brief converstaion with Norman Lamb  who is Liberal Democrat MP for North Norfolk. He lost his Mother to Ovarian Cancer but, was delighted with her treatment by her hospital. He felt that they treated her well. During my discussion with Barry Sheerman, a labour MP for Huddersfield, he highlighted how the cancer is very close to his  heart.  His daughter survived the disease in her early 20’s.  She has now been able to conceive four children.  Each through IVF Treatment, due her inability to conceive naturally from her chemotherapy.

The day was really successful due to the sharing of the experiences, knowledge and assurance of help from MPs to execute awareness campaigns in the society. MPs collected a press release to use with their local media.  The photos of the event were used by MPs local media to publicise their support for the report. Each MP who attended the Parliamentary ‘drop-in event’ will be contacted in early 2013 by MHP Health Mandate to discuss the day and the methods to improve the treatment of Ovarian Cancer.

After attending the successful event I am now keen on taking the initiative forward by supporting Ovacome in every awareness program. I am running the London Marathon 2013 for Ovacome and I am sure that many more will join this program and help in making the event successful.

 

Optibrium and Digital Chemistry Announce Technology Collaboration to Guide Successful Drug Discovery

Integration of bioisostere database with automatic application and prioritisation will guide the identification of novel, high quality compounds in drug discovery

 

CAMBRIDGE and SHEFFIELD, UK, December 4^th, 2012 – Optibrium and Digital Chemistry, providers of software and database solutions for drug discovery, today announce an agreement to collaborate on the integration of Digital Chemistry’s unique BIOSTER™ database of precedented bioisostere replacements with Optibrium’s StarDrop™ software suite. This combination will allow drug discovery teams to quickly identify novel, high quality compounds based on the BIOSTER molecular transformations and prioritise these within StarDrop’s intuitive environment that guides the design and selection of compounds with an optimal balance of properties.  

The BIOSTER database contains over 25,000 bioisostere replacements, hand-curated from the literature by Dr István Ujváry and is distributed exclusively by Digital Chemistry. As part of the collaboration with Optibrium, the BIOSTER database will be converted into transformations that can be applied in StarDrop’s Nova™ module, which automatically generates new, chemically relevant compound structures to stimulate the search for high quality chemistry related to initial hit or lead compounds. The combined functionality of Nova and BIOSTER will allow for the application of this comprehensive database of precedented bioisostere replacements to generate novel structures with a high likelihood of biological activity and synthetic accessibility. StarDrop’s unique capabilities for multi-parameter optimisation and predictive modelling will allow efficient prioritisation of the resulting compound ideas to identify those with the best chance of achieving the property profile required for a successful drug.

The applications of these technologies extend throughout the drug discovery process, including the rigorous exploration of chemistries around early hits, scaffold hopping to overcome issues with a lead series or to identify diverse back-up series and protection of patent space around a candidate drug.

Matthew Segall, CEO of Optibrium commented, “We are very pleased to announce our collaboration with Digital Chemistry. This furthers our on-going strategy to work with other leading developers of informatics solutions in drug discovery to provide project teams with seamless access to the best technologies to guide the efficient discovery of novel, high quality drugs.”

Julian Hayward, Managing Director of Digital Chemistry added, “The deployment of BIOSTER data within a predictive software environment fulfils a long-held ambition to enhance the usefulness of this uniquely valuable database for the discovery of novel active compounds. The ability to generate highly focused libraries of both ‘obvious’ and ‘non-obvious’ drug candidates in this manner, will, no doubt, be a welcome addition to the armoury of drug discovery tools.”

István Ujváry, Managing Director of iKem and developer of BIOSTER, concluded: “Since its conception two decades ago, BIOSTER has strived to analyse and catalogue historically documented fragment replacement strategies to assist medicinal and pesticide chemists in their quest for new bioactive molecules. The sophisticated Nova module of Optibrium’s StarDrop software suite offers an exciting new tool for navigation through the chemical space of sets of bioisosteric and other transformations of this unique database. I am certain that the collaboration between Optibrium and Digital Chemistry will result in a versatile and popular new product.”

The results of this collaboration will be available in a future version of StarDrop, expected to be released during 2013.

For further information on Optibrium and StarDrop, please visit www.optibrium.com, contact info@optibrium.com or call +44 1223 815900.

 

For further information on BIOSTER or Digital Chemistry’s other products and services, please visit www.digitalchemistry.co.uk, contact info@digitalchemistry.co.uk or call +44 113 2678667.

Opinion piece by Rob Parker - Print Vs Online

Over the last 18 months I am hearing more and more from clients the word “online”. Some clients are increasing their already present online activity, some are totally new to this way of promotion and some are even thinking of totally dismissing print promotion in favour of “Online”.

I recently received a flyer in the post, all about taking control of my advertising spend, get more people to see my company, pay as I Go advertising etc, all very interesting. The surprise behind this posted and printed flyer? Well it was from Google, yes, the largest search engine in the world use a printed A5 flyers to promote their Adwords products. So needless to say that when I hear that companies and marketing companies are considering dropping printed media, I feel a little shiver, the hairs on my neck go up, and I think to myself, what a mistake.

The  phrase “online Vs print” should be “online and print”, this powerful marketing mix should be used together, like salt and pepper on a freshly cut loin of meat, they work together increasing the performance, enhancing the flavour. A well designed mixed marketing activity can be extremely effective.

The reality is that those companies looking to only do online marketing tend to then expect that the performance will just by magic increase, when realistically online campaigns need as much, if not more preparation than a printed campaign, obviously campaign size depending.

There are many ways of using print to drive online registrations or downloads if some key areas are well thought out and planned well in advance, web address urls should be easy to remember, the WIIFM (What’s in it for me) factor needs to be there, why should a reader action an advert, insert etc, are there discounts? Is there a Free Trial Offer? The incentive to action needs to be present. That said, a brand awareness campaign, with a lovely colour glossy Ad taking up a billboard, or magazine front cover is hard to replicate online, the tangible feeling is only really present in printed material, and a really nice photograph of a product, in a seductive light, with little or no wording and maybe just a corporate logo, just doesn’t’ look right in a banner advert on a website.

In my opinion, and this little blog is simply that, my opinion, print is still a vital component to the marketing mix. If Google are still sending flyers, then I leave you with this question – Are they wrong?

Rob Parker 

Head of eCommerce at International Labmate (http://www.labmate-online.com/)

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust working in partnership with HCL Clarity

London, 29 November 2012 – Innovative workforce management platform, HCL Clarity, is set to be implemented at Worcestershire Royal Hospitals Trust this month.

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals Trust, which has an annual health budget of about £320m, is facing a series of significant financial challenges to provide sustainable services to its 570,000 residents.

HR Director Bev Edgar says the Trust needs to find £50m savings over three years as part of the £200m efficiency target for Worcestershire as a whole.

“Our Trust’s three sites, Worcester Royal Hospital, Kidderminster Hospital and Treatment Centre and the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, will be working in partnership with HCL to meet these resourcing challenges in respect of middle grade and specialist doctors. This collaborative pilot will reduce our cost of agency staffing and deliver efficiencies and allow us to reinvest those savings into patient care.” Ms Edgar said.

Worcester Acute Hospitals Trust carries out more than 95,000 planned and emergency operations each year, with 140,000 A&E attendances and 500,000 outpatient appointments.

HCL Workforce solutions Chief Executive Stephen Burke confirmed the partnership, adding HCL was delighted with the opportunity to add value.

 “The Trust is currently working towards become a Foundation Trust and a key element of this goal is to identify innovative ways to deliver efficiency savings without compromising patient care. HCL Clarity delivers this and more,” Mr Burke said.

HCL Clarity is a managed service which controls and streamlines the entire temporary worker process from start to finish, taking the agency staff headache away from Trusts.

“We developed HCL Clarity specifically for the NHS – we know Trusts want to regain control and reduce costs in the face of their £20bn savings target, and with staffing costs accounting for nearly two thirds of the NHS annual budget it’s clear to see HCL Clarity’s potential to deliver huge savings without affecting front line services,” He said.