News and Trends 23 Apr 2018 The First CAR-T Therapy Is Not Living Up to Commercial Expectations Novartis’ Kymriah, the first approved CAR-T therapy worldwide, has performed far below sales expectations in the last quarter. The news highlights the challenges CAR-T therapies still face before becoming a commercially viable treatment option. CAR-T therapy has shown impressive results treating the cancer of patients for which all other treatments fail. One would expect this […] April 23, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Editorial Team Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 11 Apr 2018 French CAR-T Developer Raises $164M Despite a Challenging Road Cellectis has raised $164M (€132M) in a follow-on offering to further develop its CAR-T technology in clinical trials, despite having mixed results in the technology’s development up until now. Cellectis, based in Paris, has closed a follow-on offering on NASDAQ, raising a total of around $164M (€132M). The funding will be used to further continue clinical development […] April 11, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Alexander Burik Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 5 Apr 2018 Boehringer Offers €1Bn for New Checkpoint Inhibitor from a French Biotech OSE Immunotherapeutics could receive up to €1.1Bn from its new partner Boehringer Ingelheim, which has set its eyes on a new type of checkpoint inhibitor being developed by the French biotech. OSE Immunotherapeutics has entered a global license and collaboration deal with Boehringer Ingelheim for the development of OSE-172, a checkpoint inhibitor antibody to treat […] April 5, 2018 - 2 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 13 Mar 2018 Danish Biotech Collaborates With US Merck on Combination Therapy for Lung Cancer IO Biotech will test its immune modulator in combination with Merck’s checkpoint inhibitor Keytruda, known for curing former US President Jimmy Carter’s cancer. IO Biotech, based in Copenhagen, has entered an agreement with Merck (the US one) to enter a Phase I/II trial for treating lung cancer with IO’s immune modulator, IO102, and Merck’s checkpoint […] March 13, 2018 - 2 minutesmins - By Alexander Burik Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
In Depth 13 Mar 2018 The Most Important Battle in Gene Editing: CRISPR versus TALEN Despite all the hype, CRISPR is still not in the clinic as a standalone therapy or part of another. So where is it in biotech? CRISPR needs no introduction. Since the gene editing technology first entered the spotlight in 2012 with the promise of revolutionizing gene editing, it has made headlines as the subject of a furious […] March 13, 2018 - 6 minutesmins - By Editorial Team Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 1 Mar 2018 Could This Parisian Biotech Startup’s Cancer Treatment Compete With Merck and Novartis? Stimunity, a Parisian biotech, secured a 2M€ seed investment to develop a cancer treatment that could compete with that of big players such as Merck and Novartis. Stimunity is a preclinical-stage startup company which develops drugs targeting a new cell signalling pathway to treat cancer. The company secured funding from Portage, a US-Canadian firm that […] March 1, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Alexander Burik Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 26 Feb 2018 ASIT Biotech Raises €13.9 M to Develop Allergy Immunotherapies ASIT Biotech, a Belgian company specialized in allergy immunotherapy, raised a total of €13.9M to develop immunotherapies against against grass pollen, peanut and house dust mite allergies. After raising €9.4M in January, ASIT Biotech has now brought the amount raised on the Euronext Brussels stock up to €13.9M. The funds will be put towards the Phase III […] February 26, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Alexander Burik Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 21 Feb 2018 FDA Approves AstraZeneca’s Lung Cancer Treatment after Rejecting Merck and Pfizer’s The FDA approval will give AstraZeneca a competitive advantage in the lung cancer treatment market over Merck KGaA & Pfizer, who received rejections for a similar treatment. AstraZeneca received FDA approval for Imfinzi in non-small cell lung cancer one day after Merck KgA and Pfizer received a rejection for competitor drug Bavencio in the same indication. Imfinzi (durvalumab) […] February 21, 2018 - 2 minutesmins - By Alexander Burik Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Interview 29 Jan 2018 Meet the CEO of the Other Big Biotech Acquisition Target in 2017 Christian Schetter’s company, Rigontec, was acquired by MSD last year for nearly half a billion euro. How did he and the company do it, with only one early-stage candidate? There were exactly two notable biotech acquisitions in Europe last year: Actelion and a smaller startup based in Munich called Rigontec, which had an RNA candidate […] January 29, 2018 - 9 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 25 Jan 2018 Researchers Take Aim at Pancreatic Cancer with a Modified Flu Virus In an early study at Queen Mary University in London, a modified flu virus has been able to block the growth of pancreatic cancer. For the first time, researchers at Queen Mary University, London, have shown that pancreatic cancer can be targeted using a modified flu virus. During a study, published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, […] January 25, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Alex Dale Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Infographics 10 Jan 2018 Infographic: All You Need to Know About Checkpoint Inhibitors Everything you need to know about what checkpoint inhibitors are and why they have caused a wave of hype for cancer immunotherapies. Since the approval of the first PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor, Keytruda, in 2014, there has been an explosion of the numbers of trials testing these drugs, both alone and in combination. The latest figure, […] January 10, 2018 - 2 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 4 Jan 2018 German Biotech Raises Record $270M Series A for Individualized Cancer Therapies BioNTech will dedicate its huge fundraising to develop personalized cancer immunotherapies using CAR-T, TCR and mRNA technologies. BioNTech is kicking off the new year with great news. The company has closed its Series A with $270M (€225M) — a record amount in Germany for such an early funding round. The fundraising was led by the […] January 4, 2018 - 2 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email