BioCentury
ARTICLE | Company News

Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) pharmaceuticals news

March 17, 2014 7:00 AM UTC

The MLSC awarded $1.1 million to four projects in the inaugural round of its International Collaborative Industry Program (ICIP). MLSC launched ICIP last April to fund projects jointly sponsored by a Massachusetts life sciences company and a company from participating regions - the state of Victoria in Australia; the Wallonia region of Belgium; the Quebec province of Canada; and the Alsace region of France. The awards include a $249,750 grant to inviCRO LLC (Boston, Mass.) and Biospective Inc. (Montreal, Quebec) to develop "imaging phenotypes" of Parkinson's disease progression, and a $250,000 grant to New England Biolabs Inc. (Ipswich, Mass.) and Transgene S.A. (Euronext:TNG, Illkirch, France) to develop a production platform for viral vectors with improved digestion of DNA impurities. The EMD Millipore Corp. division of Merck KGaA (Xetra:MRK, Darmstadt, Germany) and Promethera BioSciences S.A. (Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium) received a $400,000 grant to develop a product with a "human liver like" phenotype for early stage toxicity testing. EMD Millipore is located in Billerica, Mass. Finally, Covaris Inc. (Woburn, Mass.) and Coris BioConcept S.p.r.l. (Wallonia, Belgium) received a $160,000 grant to develop a dry ultrasonic genetic diagnostic for sepsis (see BioCentury, April 29, 2013). ...