News and Trends 9 Aug 2017 Danish Diabetes Biotech Rakes in $75M on NASDAQ in American IPO After announcing its intentions last month, Zealand Pharma has gone public in the US to fund its diabetes clinical trials. Zealand Pharma, a Glostrup-based biotech focused on peptide development for diabetes, has been public on the Danish Aktieselskabet exchange since 2011, and since then its share price has risen by 50%. After filing for an American […] August 9, 2017 - 2 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 3 Aug 2017 Designer Babies in Europe: German Merck Set to Receive CRISPR Patent Merck KGaA has received a Notice of Intention to Grant from the European Patent Office that its CRISPR patent will cover genomic integration. Everyone in biotech is gunning for a piece of the CRISPR pie, and German Merck will likely become the next company to acquire IP, adding to the pile it began building in 2012. […] August 3, 2017 - 2 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 2 Aug 2017 Scottish Biotech gets €4M from Horizon 2020 for Off-the-Shelf Cell Therapy TC Biopharm has just received the largest award of its kind to develop allogeneic gamma-delta T cell therapies for various cancers. Based in Glasgow, TC Biopharm was just selected to receive €4M from Horizon 2020 for its “off-the-shelf” gamma-delta T cell program. This grant brings the company’s fundraising total to €25M, and it’s the largest any UK […] August 2, 2017 - 3 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 2 Aug 2017 French Biotech May Save Toddlers from Life-Threatening Peanut Allergy The first French biotech to NASDAQ, DBV, is expanding the patient group for its promising peanut allergy treatment to include toddlers. DBV Technologies’ Phase IIb results of its peanut allergy therapy, Viaskin Peanut, were one of 2016’s biggest clinical success stories when it successfully desensitized children to obviate life-threatening allergies. A trial in children between the ages […] August 2, 2017 - 1 minutemin - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
In Depth 25 Jul 2017 Trouble in Paradise: How Biotech is Fighting Tropical Diseases Tropical diseases are often neglected until an outbreak causes worldwide panic. Here’s how European biotech is preparing for the next one. “What we really need is a very fast and cheap way to develop vaccines,” biotech godfather Greg Winter told me earlier this year. Such precautionary measures may well be on our minds as Europe […] July 25, 2017 - 6 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
In Depth 19 Jul 2017 The Humanities of Scientific Investment: Perspectives from Europe’s Top Biotech Hub Deep human connections are the key to success in business, and biotech is no exception. The secret to amplifying this effect? Women. Commenting on the personal dimension of business usually comes as an aside in broader discussions, but at the ON Helix conference in the Cambridge area last Thursday, Sharon Vosmek, CEO of Silicon Valley-based […] July 19, 2017 - 4 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Interview 17 Jul 2017 Pinning Down Elusive Targets: Interviewing the Co-Founder & CSO of Heptares Heptares is expanding into a range of indications with its GPCR platform. I caught up with CSO & co-founder Fiona Marshall to hear more about the strategy. Fiona Marshall has always worked on G-protein coupled receptors, or GPCRs for short. These entities are key to many eukaryotic signaling pathways, and because of their prevalence, they’re […] July 17, 2017 - 6 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Interview 13 Jul 2017 Meet Denmark’s Youngest Professor and Serial Synbio Entrepreneur Philip sat down to chat with Professor and serial entrepreneur Morten Sommer about his career in the second Labiotech Hangout. At 35, Morten Sommer is not only the youngest full professor ever in Denmark but also the entrepreneur behind a number of synbio-based companies. For Labiotech’s second Hangout on June 29th, Philip probed his thoughts […] July 13, 2017 - 4 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Interview 11 Jul 2017 The Advantage for the First Mover in NASH is Limited, says Genfit After we reviewed NASH earlier this year, Genfit’s CSO, Dean Hum, came to speak at Refresh about his company’s strategy in the space. As CSO of Genfit, Dean Hum coordinates the company’s R&D efforts to be first to market in NASH, which represent an untapped market of €37B. The company is counting on its lead […] July 11, 2017 - 4 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 11 Jul 2017 Novartis largely dodged deaths from its CAR-T therapy, but FDA still has safety concerns Editor’s Note: Novartis did note a death from cerebral hemorrhage in its hearing with the FDA yesterday. With the application review hearing set for tomorrow, the FDA has shared its thoughts on Novartis’ CAR-T candidate. Up front are serious safety concerns. Novartis’ CTL019, or Tisagenlecleucel, wowed the audience at ASH last fall with a stellar 82% […] July 11, 2017 - 3 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 10 Jul 2017 You can buy DNA on Amazon, thanks to this Biotech Accelerator Steve O’Connell from RebelBio spoke to us about how far consumer biotech has come and synbio’s role in its democratization. Steve Jobs famously predicted that biology would one day go the way of computing and become available to the ordinary consumer. How is it progressing? “It’s already happening,” Steve O’Connell, Associate Director of RebelBio, told Philip […] July 10, 2017 - 2 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 5 Jul 2017 Cutting Through the BS in Biopharma: How To Spot Hype Faced with the oft-quoted figure that 90% of clinical trials end in failure, how can patients, investors, and readers be spared more disappointment? After discussing failures in biotech at Refresh earlier in June, I headed to Copenhagen last week for the European Conference for Science Journalists to cajole a panel into discussing how some of these stories feature […] July 5, 2017 - 4 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email