Briefs: CSR’s CEO joins Int’l chip Alliance Board; NextGen sells unit for $0.5m; MMI’s research update cheers market
CSR plc said CEO Joep van Beurden has joined the board of the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA).
The GSA has added new director seats to its Board, selecting leaders from around the world to create a leadership structure that reflects the new mission of the alliance by ensuring geographical diversity and industry governance.
Mr van Beurden said: "The GSA will play a key role in this difficult time for the industry and the global economy, and I hope that my experience will add to the strong team of industry leaders from all aspects of the semiconductor market."
Mr van Beurden joined CSR in 2007 and has over 10 years experience in managing technology companies in the US and Europe. Prior to CSR he was CEO for NexWave Inc, a provider of embedded software for the consumer electronics market based in France.
The GSA board now comprises 22 executives from each region of the world who reflect the organisation's international reach and the varied nature of the semiconductor industry.
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NextGen Group plc, the provider of biomarker testing services, has sold its non core electrophoresis business to Sigma Aldrich Corp, Missouri for $0.56m in cash, of which $0.179m was assets, and an 8% royalty on global sales for three years payable in cash.
NextGen has sold the rights, design and expertise for the electrophoresis technology and retains the right to use this technology in its fee-for-service biomarker business and for its in-house research.
The disposal follows the divestiture of the non core 'gene to protein' automation and software business announced in December and completes the strategic realignment of NextGen, the company said.
NextGen's strategic plan has been to divest or wind down its software and instrumentation UK-based businesses and to focus all resources including the profit realised from these transactions on growing the biomarker services business.
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Autonomy Corporation plc, a specialist in infrastructure software for the enterprise unveiled its Interaction Control Element (ICE), the first solution to automate the policy-driven capture, classification, and real-time compliance for multi-channel customer interactions.
By intelligently identifying relevant business activity, including traditional customer interactions, employee application usage and server events, and taking appropriate actions based on user-defined business policies, ICE expands the enterprise's ability to govern and manage critical customer and business data.
The company said ICE is the only product of its kind that can dynamically monitor desktop activity such as CRM and helpdesk applications as well as live email and chat interactions, and take the appropriate action automatically and in real-time, whether it be masking credit card information for security purposes or attaching customer data to a recording.
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Medical Marketing International Group plc, the life sciences company focused on the development of drugs for cancer, issued a statement updating progress on its vaccines and ruthenium chemotherapies.
On cancer vaccines, it said: The commercial prostate cancer vaccine has completed the preclinical equivalence studies with the academic vaccine being used in the current clinical trial. The positive result obtained in this study allows continued preparations for the commencement of a Phase II trial.
Ruthenium chemotherapies: The ruthenium compound ONCO 4417 has been investigated in a number of pre-clinical studies to enhance understanding of the mechanism of action by which it kills cancer cells. These studies show that ONCO 4417 induces DNA damage to levels comparable with that of cisplatin and suggest that the induced DNA damage may directly or indirectly result in apoptosis (programmed cell death).
The stock market was cheered by the news, marking MMI's shares up 6%. It is now valued at around £4.14m.
