AZTherapies commences Ph III Alzheimer's trial; GE researching gene editing;

AZTherapies is kicking off a Phase III study of its Alzheimer's candidate, a novel formulation of two drugs approved for other indications featuring targeted delivery specific to the disease. Release

GE is shedding its financial business to focus on its industrial segments, as well as the life sciences. The company's Dharmacon unit has a keen interest in gene editing, known as CRISPR. "We can manipulate genes quite precisely now. The easy part is to switch proteins on and off; an even more interesting application of CRISPR-Cas9 is to change protein expression in order to create, for example, complex synthetic gene circuits," said Anja Smith, Dharmacon's director of research and development. More