U.S. prosecutors accused a former commander of the Honduran police of importing tons of cocaine into the United States on behalf of the country's president, a Trump ally.

Rick Bright, pushed out of a job heading a federal research agency, files a complaint saying he was retaliated against for resisting Trump's plans.

Graffiti artist paints NHS fundraiser Captain Tom on Tamworth wall

The European Medical Device Regulation (EU MDR) will come into effect on 26th May 2021, a year later than originally planned.

Huffington Post: Data Exclusivity: Getting the Balance Right      A great article on the downsides of cutting or removing data exclusivity provisions for biologics.  The article points out that data protection is needed to enhance safety and create incentives to research and produce new innovative drugs that cost billions of dollars.  However, the author argues that the period must be […]

Posted by Stephanie Fischer on June 10, 2011 at 3:29pm EDT on BIOtech Now The U.S. Supreme Court issued a favorable decision yesterday in the critical case of Microsoft v. i4i, in which Microsoft challenged the “clear and convincing evidence” standard traditionally used by courts in determining whether to invalidate an issued U.S. patent.   Microsoft argued for a lower “preponderance […]

Dr Reshma Kewalramani has been made the new Vertex CEO.

Vertex’s Chief Medical Officer Dr Kewalramani will succeed current CEO Jeffrey Leiden who has is now stepping aside from the role after seven years as Chief executive at the Boston-based firm. In stepping down Leiden will serve as executive chairman until the first quarter of 2023.     

Fourty-six year old Dr Kewalramani, who has been at Vertex since 2017, will thus become the first woman to head the firm. Prior to joining Vertex, Kewalramani spent more than 12 years at Amgen.

read more

Immunotherapy-focused pharmaceutical company Midatech Pharma has appointed Stephen Stamp as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) with immediate effect.

He will be replacing Nick Robbins-Cherry, who has stepped down after five years since joining in 2014. Robbins will nevertheless remain at Midatech until October to facilitate Stamp’s handover in an orderly fashion.

Stamp has most recently served as CEO of pharmaceutical firm Ergomed for two years, stepping down in January citing health reasons. Prior to this he was CFO at Ergomed for a year beginning in 2016.

read more

London consultant and public health professor, Chris Whitty, has begun his role as England’s Chief Medical Officer, taking over from Dame Sally Davies, who has now stepped down from the position.

Whitty has served as the Department of Health and Social Care’s Chief Scientific Adviser since 2016 and was announced as Dame Sally Davies successor earlier in June this year.

read more

Gilead Sciences have announced that Merdad Parsey will join the company as Chief Medical Officer, effective November 1st.

Dr Parsey will be responsible for and oversee the company’s global clinical development and medical affairs organisations – reporting directly to Daniel O’Day, Gilead’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

read more

Saniona has announced that Rami Levin will take over as the Chief Executive Officer of the company as it seeks to transition into a fully-fledge biopharmaceuticals company, with a focus on rare diseases.

Levin was appointed by the Board of Directors and the company’s founders. His appointment takes immediate effect.

read more

Ipsen has named Dr Steven Hildemann as its new Executive Vice President, Chief Medical Officer, Head of Global Medical Affairs and Pharmacovigilance.

In his new role, which begins on 1 March 2020 and will be based in Paris, he will report directly to Ipsen CEO Aymeric Le Chatelier. His remit will include the provision of medical strategy to the company’s scientific, clinical and business teams, while also working in tandem with its R&D operations to design and direct clinical trials efforts to generation of post-launch data.

read more

Khondrion has revealed that Dr Rob van Maanen has joined the company as its new Chief Medical Officer (CMO).

Dr van Maanen’s career has spanned more than 20 years and seen him take on roles at major industry names such as Roche, Astellas and Eisai. In the role, he will manage the company’s medical operations and clinical strategy.

read more

Galecto has announced Bertil Lindmark as their new Chief Medical Officer. He began his posting on 1 February 2020.

Lindmark joins from the eTheRNA immunotherapies, which is a Belgian mRNA immunotherapy company. He has also had an extensive and successful career in the pharmaceutical industry.

read more

Nordic Nanovector has appointed Dr Lars Nieba as the interim Chief Executive Officer. He is currently the company’s Chief Technology Officer and replaces Eduardo Bravo who as of today has left Nordic to pursue other career opportunities.

read more

Andreas Johannesson has been announced as Alligator Bioscience’s new interim Chief Financial Officer (CFO), replacing ex-CFO Per-Olof Schrewelius who it was previously confirmed will no longer serve the company.

Johannesson’s career has spanned 15 years in the consumer goods sector, with him managing the finances of firms including TeamOlmed, Stenqvist, Fitness23Seven and Haldex.

He spent a further nine years of his career as a strategic consultant with a focus on consumer goods, five of which were spent at global consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

read more

Data science firm Genomics Plc, which lays claim to “the world’s largest genomic database”, has welcomed Mitchell Harris to the company and its senior leadership team as its Chief Strategy Officer.

Joining from his previous role as Global Head, Emerging Business Lines at Abcam, Harris’ career has given him ample experience in commercial strategy and operations. Prior to his most recent role at Abcam, he acted as the company’s Head of Proteins Portfolio Commercial and Business Development.

read more

Genmab has announced the establishment of the new position of Chief Operating Officer at the company, and has furthermore named Anthony Mancini to the post. In this new role, he will oversee the company’s commercial strategies, including corporate development, business development and information technology functions

read more

The Chief Executive Officer of Immuron, Gary S. Jacob, has resigned as CEO and as a member of the Board due to restructering taking place to prepare the company for a post-coronavirus world.

In a statement, the company said it was the first move to help the “preservation of capital to allow the company to weather the current trading conditions pending strengthening of the travel market. This will involve radical cost-cutting and deferring certain research and development activities.”

read more

Lumos Pharma, Inc. has promoted Dr John McKew to the position of Chief Operating Officer effective 1 April 2020.

McKew is already Chief Scientific Officer and he will do both roles simultaneously. With his new role, he will lead Lumos’s clinical development plan as the company looks toward adding additional assets to its pipeline.

read more

StrideBio have announced the appointment of Maritza McIntyre Ph.D., as its first Chief Development Officer.

The newly created role will see Dr McIntyre oversea the translational development of the company’s research-stage gene therapy programs. This includes regulatory filings, initiating early clinical studies and starting Investigational New Drug enabling preclinical studies.

read more

Dr Lisa von Moltke has left Aklermes and has joined Seres Therapeutics as its new Chief Medical Officer.

Chief Executive Officer at Seres, Eric Shaff, said Seres will benefit from von Moltke’s “extensive experience directing successful development programs, leading clinical teams, and interacting with regulatory agencies across multiple areas of medicine.”

read more

Washington DC – The Association of Clinical Research Organizations (ACRO) is pleased to announce that its Board of Directors has elected Alistair...

The biotech company Galecto Inc have appointed Jonathan Freve as its Chief Financial Officer, and in his role he will lead financial operations including overseeing investor relations and fundraising efforts.  

read more

A federal jury in Jacksonville, Fla., found Paul Tillis, a former Florida Department of Corrections officer, guilty on Jan. 16, 2009, of a felony federal civil rights violation for an August 2005 assault on an inmate.

A Chicago police officer pleaded guilty today to violating the federal civil rights of a man whom the officer struck repeatedly with a dangerous weapon while the man was handcuffed and shackled in a wheelchair.

A federal grand jury indictment was unsealed today in Oklahoma City charging corrections officers Gavin Littlejohn, 25, of Oklahoma City, and Justin Isch, 21, of Edmond, Okla., with a federal civil rights violation for the fatal assault of Christopher Beckman at the Oklahoma County Detention Center in May 2007.

The former finance director of an Orange County, Calif.-based valve company pleaded guilty today in connection with his role in a conspiracy to pay approximately $628,000 in bribes to numerous foreign government officials.

Raul Cortes-Meza, 21, aka “Oscar”, a Mexican national, pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Atlanta to sex trafficking of a minor from Mexico.

Two men have been arrested and charged in an indictment unsealed today with crimes related to sex trafficking. Tommy Handy and his nephew, Everett Cooney, were indicted by a federal grand jury in Little Rock, Ark., for conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and sex trafficking for their roles in using force, fraud and coercion to cause juvenile girls and adult women to engage in commercial sex acts.

A federal jury in Memphis, Tenn., today found Arthur Sease IV, a former Memphis Police Department officer, guilty on forty-four counts of civil rights, narcotics, robbery and firearms offenses. The evidence at trial showed that from November 2003 through April 2006, Sease conspired with other Memphis police officers to use their authority as law enforcement officers, including their service weapons, to rob suspected drug dealers of cash, cocaine and marijuana. Sease and his co-conspirators would then resell the stolen drugs for their own profit.

A former Velda City, Mo., auxiliary reserve police officer pleaded guilty today to violating the federal civil rights of a woman he sexually assaulted during a traffic stop and to concealing evidence of his crime from federal investigators. According to facts presented in court, on or about July 9, 2006, Joe Ernest Phillips, 38, then an auxiliary reserve police officer for the Velda City Police Department sexually assaulted a woman while acting under color of law and deprived her of her civil rights.

Five defendants, all members or associates of an extended family, face potential life sentences after being found guilty of sex trafficking for participating in a scheme that lured young Central American women and girls into the Los Angeles area and forced them into prostitution. The defendants, four Guatemalan nationals and one Mexican citizen, were convicted on Feb. 11, 2009, of conspiracy; sex trafficking by force, fraud or coercion; and importation of aliens for purposes of prostitution.

A fish wholesaler, its owner and an employee have all pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for the illegal purchase and sale of striped bass from the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River from 2003 through 2007.

We appreciate the diligent work of the National Research Council’s committee on forensic science in preparing this report. The Department of Justice’s principal focus in dealing with forensic evidence is on applying it dispassionately to law enforcement challenges, and we regularly use forensics to not only convict the guilty, but also to exonerate the innocent.

Leonard Fox a/k/a Anton a/k/a “Daddy” pleaded guilty today to a federal civil rights charge for sex trafficking of minors. In U.S. District Court in Memphis, Fox admitted to recruiting and obtaining underage girls and arranging for those girls to engage in commercial sex acts for his financial benefit.

Three former Atlanta Police Department (APD) officers were sentenced to prison today by Chief U.S. District Judge Julie E. Carnes on a charge of conspiracy to violate civil rights resulting in death, arising from the fatal police shooting of Kathryn Johnston, a 92-year old Atlanta woman.

The Department announced today that it has reached a settlement that, if approved by the court, will resolve a lawsuit filed by the Department against the Administrative Office of the Courts of the State of North Carolina and the Honorable Jerry Braswell, Senior Resident Superior Court Judge for North Carolina Judicial District 8-B, in his official capacity.

The Department announced today that it has entered into a consent decree with the city of Dayton that, if approved by the court, will resolve the Department’s complaint that Dayton has been engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination against African-Americans in its hiring of entry-level police officers and firefighters, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII).

Laura Pendergest-Holt, the chief investment officer of Houston-based Stanford Financial Group (SFG), was arrested today by agents of the FBI’s Houston Field Office on a criminal complaint charging her with obstruction of a proceeding before an agency of the United States. Pendergest-Holt will make her initial appearance on Friday, Feb. 27, 2009, before U.S. Magistrate Mary Milloy at the federal courthouse in Houston.

Two citizens of the United Kingdom have been charged in an indictment unsealed today in the United States for their alleged participation in a decade-long scheme to bribe Nigerian government officials to obtain engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts. The EPC contracts to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities on Bonny Island, Nigeria, were valued at more than $6 billion.

A former official of the U.S. Tax Court was sentenced today in connection with a bribery conspiracy involving contracts at the U.S. Tax Court in the District of Columbia. Fred Fernando Timbol Jr., 43, of Mount Airy, Md., was sentenced by Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to 18 months in prison and three years of supervised release.

A former corrections officer with the Lucas County, Ohio, Sheriff’s Office was sentenced today to four years in prison for violating the civil rights of inmates in his custody at the Lucas County jail, as well as private citizens on the streets of the greater Toledo area. Today in federal district court in Toledo, Ohio, Judge Jack Zouhary also sentenced the former corrections officer, Seth Bunke, to three years of supervised release following the prison term.

Two former Memphis police officers were sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Memphis for their roles in a conspiracy to rob drug dealers.

The Associate Director of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Consolidated Mail Outpatient Pharmacy in Hines, Ill., agreed to plead guilty to being part of a conspiracy to defraud the VA and the Small Business Administration (SBA). His wife and the temporary staffing company she founded agreed to plead guilty to participating in the same conspiracy.

An Irish trading company and three of its officers have been charged with purchasing helicopter engines and other aircraft components from U.S. firms and illegally exporting them to Iran using companies in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. Among the alleged recipients of these U.S. goods was an Iranian military firm that has since been designated by the United States for being owned or controlled by entities involved in Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program.

A former Michigan school official was sentenced to serve 46 months in jail and to pay $1.34 million in restitution for his role in a fraudulent scheme to obtain millions of dollars from the Detroit-area Ecorse Public School District, the federal E-Rate program and TCF National Bank. Douglas Benit, a former assistant superintendent at Ecorse Public Schools (EPS), was sentenced in the U.S. District Court in Detroit today after pleading guilty on Nov. 24, 2008, to one count each of mail fraud and bank fraud.

A current Baltimore City Police Department officer and two retired officers were charged in a six-count federal indictment unsealed today with civil rights and obstruction of justice violations stemming from an April 2004 incident during which officers allegedly assaulted a handcuffed and shackled juvenile with a baton and pool stick.

Nathan Davis, a former police officer with the Baton Rouge Police Department in Baton Rouge, La., pleaded guilty today to a felony civil rights violation for use of excessive force. At today’s court hearing, defendant Davis admitted that he intentionally used excessive force in March 2007 against a man who had been arrested, handcuffed and taken to a police department holding center.