Almac launched a new program to help sponsors find biomarkers. Said Paul Harkin, president and managing director of the company's diagnostics division: “We have combined a range of key solutions which are ideally suited to growing biopharma companies.”

PPD will expand its laboratory services on the east coast of the U.S. to handle cGMP projects for biotechnology clients. PPD has already moved some personnel from a Wisconsin location and expects to have 25 employees at its new Wayne, Penn., facility by the end of the year. Here's the release.

Denmark's Lundbeck renewed its contract to use the electronic data capture (EDC) system of Medidata Solutions. Said Medidata's chairman and CEO, Tarek Sherif: “We have developed a strong partnership with Lundbeck over the past two years and are proud to continue to play a key role in supporting the company’s strong pipeline of central nervous system (CNS) therapies.” Here's a release.

A Scottsdale, Arizona, imaging core lab, Imaging Endpoints, chose the EDC system of Waltham, Mass., Akaza Research. "The OpenClinica Enterprise Edition allows us to accelerate our imaging clinical trials and provide the most efficient, reliable, cost-effective imaging studies in the fastest possible timeframes,” said Alison Coates, director of Imaging Endpoints.

Over the years, U.S. military computers and those of private defense contractors have been easily compromised by Russian and Chinese hackers. (Here's one of many articles on this topic.) But last week's breach of 91,000 Wikileaks documents highlights another IT vulnerability at the Dilbert-worthy Pentagon. Although the military attempted to disable external hard drives and thumb drives on some computers, it permitted soldiers to attach CD burners to entertain themselves. Indicted info-leaker Bradley Manning would pretend to listen to music by Lady Gaga when he was stealing sensitive documents. Are clinical trial systems just as vulnerable? Here's a blog post and a New York Times article.

Geron said it will proceed with the first trial of embryonic stem cells in patients with spinal injuries. Said Geron president and CEO Thomas Okarma: "Our goals for the application of GRNOPC1 in subacute spinal cord injury are unchanged—to achieve restoration of spinal cord function by the injection of hESC-derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cells directly into the lesion site of the patient's injured spinal cord. Additionally, we are now formally exploring the utility of GRNOPC1 in other degenerative CNS disorders including Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis and Canavan disease." Here's a release. d9A2t49mkex

Have a news release? Send it to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)