In Depth 14 Jan 2019 Life in Bioplastic, it’s More Fantastic Plastic is the staple material of modern life, and a sustainable future will need bioplastics. What is biotech doing to make this happen? “What do you include in bioplastics? Because bioplastics is a very large word,” commented Emmanuel Maille, formerly Director of Strategy and Development at French chemical company Carbios, which focuses on developing biobased […] January 14, 2019 - 10 minutesmins - By Denise Neves Gameiro Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 14 Jan 2019 Update: French Biotech Considers Takeover After Failed Leukemia Drug Trial Update (14/01/2019): An anonymous French company on Euronext has made an offer to take over Hybrigenics Pharma. This takeover bid could be good news for Hybrigenics, which has been planning to dissolve the company after the failed Phase II trial of its only candidate, a treatment for acute myeloid leukemia. The financial details of the offer […] January 14, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Startup Scout 11 Jan 2019 This Company Automates Cancer Research from Bench to Bar Charts In the academic city of Oxford, UK, the company Arctoris is working to make life easier for cancer lab researchers, letting them ‘order’ experiments online using its robotic facilities and data analysis tools. Mission: To cut down researchers’ workloads by automating cellular, molecular, and data analysis techniques in cancer research. As any molecular biologist will […] January 11, 2019 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 10 Jan 2019 This Retinal Implant Lets Visually-Impaired Patients See Patterns An electronic chip from French company Pixium Vision, inserted behind the retina to treat age-related macular degeneration, has shown excellent results in a small clinical trial. The five patients in the feasibility study suffered from dry age-related macular degeneration, the most common cause of visual impairment in people over 65 in Europe. In this incurable […] January 10, 2019 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Interview 10 Jan 2019 How to Scale up in Biotech Scaling up is a problem a lot of biotechs find difficult, both in terms of developing from a small startup to a larger company and also in terms of manufacturing techniques and products. Ryan Cawood, CEO of Oxford Genetics is someone who has tackled both these issues during the last seven years. At our last […] January 10, 2019 - 9 minutesmins - By Helen Albert Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 8 Jan 2019 Topical Gene Therapy Shows Early Promise for Inherited Skin Disease A gene therapy applied to the skin, developed by UK company Amryt Pharma, showed positive preclinical results for the treatment of a rare genetic skin disease. The disease, called recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (RDEB), is one of a group of diseases in which sufferers have mutations in proteins vital to the integrity of the […] January 8, 2019 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 7 Jan 2019 Sanofi Invests €80M in mRNA Cancer Vaccine Company Sanofi is to make an €80M equity investment in the German biotech BioNTech, and the two have agreed to co-develop a cancer vaccine based on injecting messenger RNA into solid tumors. This agreement is an extension of Sanofi and BioNTech’s collaboration, which began in 2015. The two companies will continue to co-develop and co-commercialize a candidate […] January 7, 2019 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 7 Jan 2019 AI Drug Discovery Company Raises €23M and Signs with Roche Oxford-based Exscientia has closed a €23M ($26M) Series B round and announced a partnership with Roche worth up to €60M. Exscientia has developed an artificial intelligence platform to boost drug discovery in pharma and biotech. “We can reduce at least 4- to 5-fold the time and cost of drug discovery as compared to the industry […] January 7, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 7 Jan 2019 Swiss Firm Raises €67M to Take Genomics AI to Hospitals SOPHiA GENETICS has completed a $77M (€67M) funding round that will expand the use of its artificial intelligence technology for genomics into hospitals across the world. The funding will mainly go towards the recruitment of new employees. The goal is to increase the number of hospitals using SOPHiA’s AI technology, particularly in the US, where […] January 7, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Best in Biotech 7 Jan 2019 15 European Biotech Companies to Watch in 2019 As 2018 drew to a close, we had a look at how many companies had been doing and what their prospects were for the new year. It’s hard to narrow it down, but we think these European biotechs are going to make headlines this year. Last year was a great year for biotech in Europe. […] January 7, 2019 - 9 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 4 Jan 2019 Innovative Eye Disease Therapies Move Closer to the Clinic Oculis has increased its series B fundraising round to CHF35M (€31M) to continue development of its pipeline of topical eye treatments for diseases such as diabetic macular edema. The company specializes in creating special nanoparticle formulations of drugs for treatment of various eye diseases to allow them to be applied directly to the eye as […] January 4, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Helen Albert Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 3 Jan 2019 Austrian Biopharma Reaches First HIV Vaccine Milestone Hookipa Pharma has reached its first milestone in a partnership deal with US-based CAR T pioneers Gilead Sciences to develop an HIV vaccine using the Austrian company’s arenavirus-based technology. Hookipa’s lead candidate is a prophylactic vaccine for cytomegalovirus, a common infection that can be dangerous in people with weak immune systems, such as those with […] January 3, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Helen Albert Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email