News and Trends 17 Dec 2018 Series B Boosts British Biotech’s Cell Therapy Automation With €22.6M The UK company Synthace has raised €22.6M to develop its software platform to automate and improve the manufacturing process in gene and cell therapy. The round, led by Hong Kong-based investor Horizons Ventures, will help to fund the development of Synthace’s software designed to automate key protocols in the lab. Furthermore, the funding will help […] December 17, 2018 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
More News! 14 Dec 2018 Cultured Meat Company Offers a Taste of the First Lab-Grown Steak The Israeli company Aleph Farms has shared with the world the first prototype of a beef steak that has been grown in a lab, harming no animal in the process. Although the world’s first lab-grown burger was tasted in 2013, growing a steak had so far remained a challenge. “We are the first company that […] December 14, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Startup Scout 14 Dec 2018 This Company is Strengthening Muscles in Neuromuscular Disorders NMD Pharma, our pick of this week, is based in Aarhus, Denmark. The company is flexing its muscles to develop a drug that can treat muscle weakness in orphan neuromuscular disorders such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and myasthenia gravis. Mission: To develop drugs to counteract muscle weakness in incurable neuromuscular disorders. Neuromuscular disorders come […] December 14, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 13 Dec 2018 Janssen Recruits Microbiome Company to Fight Inflammatory Bowel Disease The Israeli biotech BiomX has teamed up with Janssen to use its microbiome technology in the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s disease. Janssen aims to use BiomX’s technology to predict which patients with inflammatory bowel diseases will respond best its treatments based on their microbiome. The financial details of the collaboration were […] December 13, 2018 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Interview 13 Dec 2018 Making DNA Quantification More Precise Than Ever Technology advances are taking DNA quantification to a whole new level of precision by making it possible to identify single molecules in a sample. Philip talked to Rémi Dangla, CEO and co-founder of Stilla Technologies, to discuss advances and challenges in the field. Founded in 2013, Stilla Technologies is a French company that makes and […] December 13, 2018 - 4 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 12 Dec 2018 Antibody Hitting Tumor Self-Destruct Button Passes Phase I A first-in-class antibody cancer treatment, from the French company Netris Pharma, has shown good safety and anti-tumor effects in a phase I trial in patients with advanced solid tumors. The antibody met the trial’s primary objective of good tolerability in the 19 recruited patients. In addition, the antibody helped to stabilize the disease and shrink […] December 12, 2018 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 12 Dec 2018 Ultrasound Brain Cancer Therapy Gets €9M Series B Funding A Series B funding round has bagged the French company CarThera €9M to fund the clinical development of an ultrasound brain cancer therapy. “The objective was for €8M, and we raised €1M more than expected,” Frederic Sottilini, CEO of CarThera, said to me. “That was very positive for us.” CarThera’s therapy uses a beam of ultrasound […] December 12, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 11 Dec 2018 What Does the Largest Biotech IPO Ever Mean for European Biotech? With a massive €530M ($604M) raised, US-based Moderna has made a record biotech IPO. The news could give a significant boost to developers of messenger RNA, a technology that is still several years away from the market. Entering the Nasdaq with a €7B ($8B) market cap, Moderna made history last Friday with a technology that […] December 11, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 11 Dec 2018 Robotic Organoid Platform to Boost Personalized Medicine The Swiss biotech Sun Bioscience has launched a robotic platform designed to standardize the production of 3D cell models of organs called organoids, making it easier to personalize treatments to a patient. Organoids are clusters of cells grown in the lab, and developed into miniature organs, such as the brain or intestine. Often no bigger […] December 11, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 11 Dec 2018 UK Biotech Settles Lawsuit on the First RNAi Drug Silence Therapeutics and Alnylam have reached a settlement that puts an end to a legal dispute between them resulting in Silence receiving some royalties on Onpattro, the first RNA interference drug. The lawsuit started last year, when Silence went to the UK courts claiming that Alnylam was infringing on its intellectual property. As part of […] December 11, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
In Depth 11 Dec 2018 Easy as ATCG: Commercialization of DNA as Data Storage You could be storing information in DNA sooner than you might think. Although the technology is still quite early — the first video encoded in DNA, revealed last year, was quite simple — the rate at which the cost of writing DNA is going down might make DNA data storage a reality in the coming […] December 11, 2018 - 5 minutesmins - By External Contributor Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 10 Dec 2018 Scientists Repurpose Skin Cells to Fight Cancer Researchers have reprogrammed skin cells to make them behave like immune cell sentinels called dendritic cells, which can recruit the immune system to fight tumors. This discovery makes a step toward better cancer immunotherapy. “We are merging two different areas of research,” Carlos-Filipe Pereira, from Lund University, Sweden, said to me. “One of them is […] December 10, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email