The Hamner Institutes For Health Sciences And PBM Capital Group Launch Triangle Research Labs

Research Triangle Park, N.C. (PRWEB) October 18, 2011

The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences (http://www.thehamner.org), a nonprofit research organization focused on translational safety sciences and a pioneer in liver toxicity research, and PBM Capital Group (PBM), a Charlottesville, Va.-based investment group with significant interests in biotech and life sciences, have announced the formation of a new joint venture in contract research services called Triangle Research Labs, LLC (TRL), which will be located on The Hamners campus at 6 Davis Drive. The new company will work on predictive toxicity testing, which will involve screening drug compounds prior to clinical studies to provide biopharma companies an insurance policy to quickly identify compounds that will be toxic to humans, potentially saving billions in the drug discovery process. As part of this effort, PBM has shifted the contract research service resources of its GigaCyte subsidiary in Branford, Conn., to The Hamners facilities in Research Triangle Park.

Leading TRLs operations will be Ivin Silver, Ph.D., formerly director of DMPK (Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics) at GlaxoSmithKline, with more than 20 years of comprehensive experience in the pharmaceutical industry applying in vitro and in vivo DMPK techniques to support both drug discovery and development, and Shiloh Barfield, formerly vice president of sales and marketing for the former venture capital based CellzDirect Inc., the worlds leader for many years in hepatic drug development services and cell products. Edward LeCluyse, Ph.D., a senior research investigator in the Institute for Chemical Safety Sciences at The Hamner and an adjunct associate professor in the Curriculum in Toxicology at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with more than 25 years of experience in the fields of pharmacology and toxicology, will supervise the research and development programs.

QUOTES:

This partnership with PBM Capital Group aligns quite well with our shared global public health vision, said William Greenlee, president and CEO of The Hamner. We are delighted that The Hamner will be the home for Triangle Research Labs, and I look forward to the many breakthroughs that will advance predictive drug safety models and accelerate new medicine development.

We are pleased to have the opportunity to work in close collaboration with The Hamner on a partnership that we believe will benefit both of us, as well as the field of predictive toxicity testing, said Paul Manning, CEO of PBM Capital Group. The Hamners reputation for scientific excellence is well known, and we are privileged to be associated with them. It is our belief that this research collaboration will lead to innovative science and advances in developing and gaining adoption of the next generation of predictive tools to aid in chemical toxicology and drug discovery and development. We are pleased that the science being developed at our GigaCyte subsidiary can contribute to these advances.

NEW MEDIA CONTENT:

The Hamner on Twitter:http://www.twitter.com/thehamner

PBM Capital Group on LinkedIn:http://www.linkedin.com/company/pbm-capital-group

DETAILS:

TRL has recruited a staff of industry-recognized specialists in the areas of cell culture, cell isolations, drug metabolism and disposition, mass spectrometry, stem cell developmental biology, analytical chemistry, molecular biology and high content image analysis.

The company offers an array of services focused on drug metabolism, drug-drug interactions, in vivo pharmacokinetics and toxicology, drug characterization, drug transporters, diabetes research, virology, hepatotoxicity and neural toxicology. Immediate R&D efforts are focused on virology of HCV, stem-cell derived hepatic models, media development, and in vitro hepatotoxicity. For more information, please visit http://www.triangleresearchlabs.com.

GigaCyte will continue as the cell products division focused on innovative 3-D culture systems, primary hepatocytes, beta-islets, primary and stem cell derived neurons, and newly developed application specific cell culture media. For more information, please visit http://www.gigacyte.com.

ABOUT THE HAMNER INSTITUTES FOR HEALTH SCIENCES:

The Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences is a nonprofit research organization located in the heart of Research Triangle Park (RTP), N.C. The two flagship institutes at The Hamner, the Institute for Chemical Safety Sciences and the Hamner-UNC Institute for Drug Safety Sciences, build upon 37 years of preeminent research in toxicology and human health research to develop and validate new cutting-edge tools for safety assessment. Novel technologies currently being developed include in silico models for predictive toxicology, in vitro models that utilize human cells or cell lines to evaluate perturbations of cellular responses, and in vivo models to elucidate genes that play a role in susceptibility to drug-induced toxicities. The Hamner continues to grow its open, multidisciplinary campus through global partnerships with academia, industry, and government, and remains dedicated to positively impacting human health. For more information, please visit http://www.thehamner.org.

ABOUT PBM CAPITAL GROUP:

PBM Capital Group, LLC. is a private investment firm primarily focused on private equity, publicly traded securities and special opportunities. The firm invests across all stages of corporate development including venture capital, leveraged buyouts, growth capital, and distressed/turnaround, as well as public equity value investing. PBM Capital Group creates long-term value by applying extensive industry knowledge and contacts, providing superior operational expertise, and bringing entrepreneurial spirit to attractive investment opportunities. The firms investments span a range of industry sectors, including life science, specialty pharmaceutical, medical devices, health/wellness, and consumer products. PBM Capital creates revolutionary companies with innovative products that can change the world and improve the quality of peoples lives. For more information, please visit http://www.pbmcap.com.

The Hamner Media Contact:

Erin Smith

MMI Public Relations

(919) 233-6600

erin(at)mmipublicrelations(dot)com

http://www.twitter.com/mmipr

http://www.mmipublicrelations.com

Triangle Research Labs, LLC Media Contact:

Shiloh Barfield

Triangle Research Labs, LLC

6 Davis Drive, P.O. Box 12137

Research Triangle Park, NC USA 27709-2137

(919) 699-0033

shiloh.barfield(at)triangleresearchlabs(dot)com

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More Investment Capital Firms Press Releases

New Documentary LUNCH Exposes Junk Food Economics That Have Created a National Health Crisis

New York, NY (PRWEB) March 18, 2010

As nation-wide funding for school cafeterias drops precipitously, and high-calorie, low-nutrient, over-processed junk food from hamburgers to tacos and pizzaare served up to millions of children each day, the very schools that teach health are contributing to runaway diseases from high-blood pressure and cholesterol to diabetes and obesity.

This month, Birds Nest Productions (http://www.birdsnestproductions.com/), in partnership with Earth Day Network (http://www.earthday.net/) will premiere LUNCH, a thought-provoking documentary short directed by Avis Richards. The film will be co-presented by Earth Day Network and the Center for Environmental Filmmaking, and as part of the multi-day, multi-venue Food & Agriculture Film Series at the American University.

The short documentary film investigates the causes and the consequences of growing up in a junk-food culture. Through numerous on-site interviews with food workers, doctors, educators, and students, Lunch provides a candid, penetrating, and disturbing account of the National School Lunch Programs failure to promote the proper dietary habits to ensure Americas children the physical, social, and psychological well-being that Ms. Richards considers to be a human right and social responsibility.

We should not just teach health, nutrition and wellness in our schools, Ms. Richards said. Our school cafeterias should be new bastion of good eating, serving locally-grown, whole foods as part of the curriculum. While some schools have begun to lead in this movement, we need every parent, teacher, administrator, legislator and the public at large to demand that ALL schools stop loading our childrens lunch trays with dangerously unhealthy foods, often packed with salt, sugar and processed ingredients.

The documentary explores viable alternatives to the hamburger hegemony, talking with farmers and other community leaders about their successful programs and ongoing efforts to change how their children eat at school.

Millions of school children are eating two-thirds of their meals at school every day, and often that food resembles that of a fast-food restaurant, said Kathleen Rogers, president of Earth Day Network. We need reform of the school lunch system at the highest levels of government, to ensure that we feed more children and feed them healthier food.

More information about the documentary, including a trailer, can be found at (http://lunchthefilm.com/).

The documentarys website also includes facts and figures on the junk food epidemic in our nations schools, as well as information about the crew, and upcoming showings that will raise money for programs designed to help schools and communities create healthier, sustainable alternatives.

Notes For Editors

The Child Nutrition Act, which supplies breakfast and lunch to some 31 million students = $ 12 billion annually.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 16 percent of children (over 9 million) 6-19 years old are overweight or obese -- a number that has tripled since 1980.
For children born in the United States in 2000, the lifetime risk of being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives is estimated to be about 30 percent for boys and 40 percent for girls. ("Preventing Childhood Obesity: Health in the Balance, 2005," Institute of Medicine.)

About Birds Nest Productions & Birds Nest Foundation

Birds Nest Productions is a charitable corporation that produces highly creative and informative PSAs and short video productions for charitable organizations. Ms. Richards, the award-winning executive producer and director has produced and directed over 50 video production films that promote various charities. The goal of Birds Nest Productions is to provide the medium to educate and market to both targeted audiences and the public at-large in order to promote the cause, consequences and issues that effectively enable the client foundation to communicate their message through media and content.

Birds Nest Foundation is the non-for-profit entity that Avis founded to provide services to non-for-profit 501c3 charities. Birds Nest Productions and Birds Nest Foundation have worked with a myriad of charities to provide video productions and web-enabled content benefiting charitable foundations. The charities that benefit from Avis work include a myriad of worthy causes dedicated to improving education, promoting inner-city youth, providing health-care and medical services, protecting against domestic violence, or relating to environmental issues.

For more information visit http://www.birdsnestproductions.com and http://www.birdsnestproductions.org.

About Earth Day Network

Earth Day Network was founded on the premise that all people, regardless of race, gender, income, or geography, have a moral right to a healthy, sustainable environment. Our mission is to broaden and diversify the environmental movement worldwide, and to mobilize it as the most effective vehicle for promoting a healthy, sustainable environment. We pursue our mission through a combination of education, public policy, and consumer activism campaigns. Our campaign and programs are predicated on the belief that an educated, energized population will take action to secure a healthy future for itself and its children. Earth Day Network has a global reach with a network of more than 17,000 partners and organizations in 174 countries. More than 1 billion people participate in Earth Day activities, making it the largest secular civic event in the world.

For more information visit http://www.earthday.net

About The Environmental Film Festival

The Environmental Film Festival has become the leading showcase for environmental films in the United States. Presented in collaboration with over 100 local, national and global organizations, the Festival is one of the largest cooperative cultural events in the nations capital. Films are screened at 56 venues throughout the city, including museums, embassies, libraries, universities and local theaters. Most screenings are free.

For a complete schedule, visit the Festival Web site at http://www.dcenvironmentalfilmfest.org.

Earth Day Network

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