News and Trends 18 Mar 2021 Europe Falls Behind in Efforts to Track Covid-19 Variants As barely a third of European countries meet targets to track concerning Covid-19 variants, diagnostics and genomics companies are scrambling to help them tackle this challenge. New strains of the Covid-19 coronavirus are sweeping Europe as vaccine distribution efforts roll on. These variants often gain traction when mutations let them become more virulent or spread […] March 18, 2021 - 5 minutesmins - By Anita Chakraverty Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Interview 15 Mar 2021 Developing a Vaccine that Protects Against Covid-19 Variants Despite the promise of several approved Covid-19 vaccines and the widespread rollout of vaccination programs around the world, recent mutations in the virus causing Covid-19 are raising concern. Can the current vaccines protect against different coronavirus variants? Paul Higham became CEO of the Finnish firm Valo Therapeutics in 2020. The company was founded in 2016 […] March 15, 2021 - 8 minutesmins - By Larissa Warneck-Silvestrin Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 9 Feb 2021 EMA Green Light Sends Oxford Covid-19 Vaccine Into Turbulent Market As AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford’s Covid-19 vaccine debuts in the EU market this month, supply bottlenecks, viral variants, and political squabbles demonstrate that the quest to develop and distribute Covid-19 vaccines is far from over. The list of approved Covid-19 vaccines in Europe is growing ever longer with the EMA approval of the […] February 9, 2021 - 6 minutesmins - By Kostas Vavitsas Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Interview 1 Feb 2021 Democratized DNA Synthesis: A Game-Changer Against Covid-19 DNA synthesis is one of the pillars of Covid-19 research that has suffered supply disruptions during lockdowns. Thomas Ybert, CEO of DNA Script, discusses the French company’s plans to protect research from future disruptions by giving every lab the ability to synthesize its own DNA molecules. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted more than ever the […] February 1, 2021 - 6 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 26 Jan 2021 Oxford’s Covid-19 Vaccine Blazes Trail for Oncolytic Virus Firms Since the debut of Imlygic in 2015, no other oncolytic virus cancer therapies have been approved by the FDA and EMA. However, we’re seeing the first signs that the Covid-19 pandemic may help the field get out of the rut. Earlier this month, the Oxford-based firm Theolytics raised €5.6M in a Series A round. This […] January 26, 2021 - 7 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Best in Biotech 28 Dec 2020 A Year to Remember: The Biggest European Biotech News in 2020 The Covid-19 pandemic caused huge disruption for European biotech in 2020, but the industry pulled through. Let’s look back at some of the top moments in the last 12 months. After the many drug approvals, startup foundations, and venture capital highs we saw in 2019, it looked like 2020 was going to be a comfortable […] December 28, 2020 - 12 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 22 Dec 2020 EMA Greenlights BioNTech and Pfizer mRNA Vaccine for Covid-19 BioNTech and Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine, made from messenger RNA, has become the first of its kind to be approved by the EMA. The EMA has granted conditional approval to Comirnaty, a vaccine against Covid-19 developed by BioNTech and Pfizer. The approval comes weeks after the UK became the first country in the world to approve […] December 22, 2020 - 5 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 9 Dec 2020 The Manufacturing Challenge to Meet Covid-19 Vaccine Demands Companies developing vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics for Covid-19 are being forced to scale up manufacturing at high speed in order to meet the enormous demand. There has been an unprecedented amount of research carried out over the last year to develop vaccines, drugs, and diagnostic tests to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. Before Canada gave the […] December 9, 2020 - 5 minutesmins - By Helen Albert Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 26 Nov 2020 AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 Vaccine Proves Its Worth in Phase III A much anticipated Covid-19 vaccine, developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca, achieved 70% efficacy in phase III interim data. While less effective on paper, it could prove cheaper and easier to distribute than its most advanced competitors. Scientists and politicians heartily received the announcement of promising interim clinical trial results from the Covid-19 […] November 26, 2020 - 4 minutesmins - By Kostas Vavitsas Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 20 Nov 2020 Breakthroughs in Decentralized Testing Could Contain Covid-19 Hospital facilities in Europe are being pushed to their limits as the Covid-19 pandemic continues into winter. Coronavirus testing that doesn’t require a central lab is now arriving on the scene, and it could be the solution to effectively monitor and contain the disease. Despite the recent announcements of promising phase III data on Covid-19 […] November 20, 2020 - 4 minutesmins - By Kostas Vavitsas Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 19 Nov 2020 mRNA Stocks Soar with Final Results of BioNTech’s Covid-19 Vaccine The field of messenger RNA therapeutics is flying high as BioNTech and Pfizer conclude a phase III trial with their Covid-19 vaccine showing 95% effectiveness. The phase III trial recruited over 43,000 volunteers to gauge whether Covid-19 infections could be prevented by a vaccine made out of messenger RNA (mRNA). One group received two doses […] November 19, 2020 - 6 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 17 Aug 2020 CureVac Continues Covid-19 Vaccine Funding Frenzy with €180M IPO The share price of CureVac has skyrocketed almost fivefold after the Covid-19 vaccine developer priced a Nasdaq IPO at €180M ($213M). The excitement around messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines against Covid-19 could also benefit other players in mRNA therapeutics. CureVac’s IPO was priced at €14 ($16) per share, giving the German company a valuation of around […] August 17, 2020 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email