Nanopartz, Nelson Labs plan new hires;

> Loveland, Colorado stands to gain 50 new jobs over the next five years following the arrival of Nanopartz, which makes gold nanoparticles for use in a cancer therapy. Story

> Nelson Laboratories, which does microbiology testing services, is adding up to 100 new jobs in Utah this year. The company just completed a 50,000 square foot facility at their campus. Release

> Shares of Aastrom Biosciences dropped 33 percent after the biotech company priced an offering of 46 million shares at 26 cents apiece. Report

> An FDA advisory panel will review Theratechnologies' NDA for tesamoreline on February 24. Release

Pharma News

> A sale of Genzyme might book a quick gain for its stockholders, but Reuters posits that a smaller, more focused Genzyme might be the better outcome for investors. Story

> In proof that pharma troubles can set off a chain reaction of cuts, the chemicals company Lonza has joined the layoff parade. Report

> Back when the U.S. Department of Justice settled claims against Omnicare, the nursing home services company, word was that Johnson & Johnson would be the next pharma company in line for government action. Report

> No sooner had GlaxoSmithKline been hit with H1N1 flu disappointments than another problem surfaced: counterfeit versions of its weight-loss product Alli. Story

> In the fight for Ratiopharm, the field has narrowed to three. But only two of those--Pfizer and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries--have any real shot at closing in on a deal, the German business newspaper Handelsblatt reports. Report

Biotech Research News

> A Yale team says that it has concluded that mutations in different cells can conspire to cause cancer. Story

> A group of fat-producing cells possesses "dual personalities" that could lead researchers to new therapies for muscle diseases like fibrosis. " Report

> A specially designed skin graft has been used to deliver molecules needed to treat high blood pressure in mice, and scientists say the same basic approach holds the promise to treat a number of conditions in humans. Report

> A team of researchers at the acclaimed Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle has developed a new technique that can be used to harvest a rich supply of stem cells from cord blood. Story

> Scientists inadvertently relied on contaminated cell lines to study new drugs for esophageal cancer, and the finding has thrown into question a number of major cancer studies. Report

> A Harvard team has determined that zebrafish offer an economical and efficient animal model to test new compounds for sleep therapy. Story

Biotech IT News

> Barcelona-based drug-maker Almirall, a long-time customer of Perceptive Informatics, has gone back to the well, selecting the DataLabs electronic data capture solution for use in upcoming trials of respiratory therapeutics. Story

> The cost and effort of in vitro drug studies may be blunted by software tools in drug metabolite safety assessments. Report

> Visual-computing solutions provider NVIDIA sees computational biology as "one of the lowest hanging fruits" that can benefit from application acceleration via graphics processing units. Report

> Best practices for edit check design have been bundled by the Society for Clinical Data Management into "Edit Check Design Principles." Story

> Talk about data volume: Third-generation sequencing technologies will make it possible to catalog the DNA of every individual in large populations, says Eric Schadt, chief scientific officer of Pacific Biosciences and a consultant to Sage Bionetworks, the nonprofit driving an open source movement for genetics data. Story

> Bob Kaplan plans to use his software-innovation experience to put some pre-commercial tweaks on StudyCTMS, the regulatory-informed clinical trial management system developed by contract researcher Clinical Trials & Surveys Corp. Report

And Finally... Weill Cornell Medical College researchers have identified an alteration to the DNA of a gene that imparts similar anxiety-related behavior in both humans and mice, demonstrating that laboratory animals can be used to study these human behaviors. Release