News and Trends 25 Sep 2019 German Biotech Will Develop Carbohydrate-Targeting Cancer Treatments The German startup Tacalyx has raised €7M in a seed round to fund the preclinical development of first-in-class carbohydrate-targeting antibody drugs for the treatment of cancer. The round was co-led by the Germany-based Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and the French VC firm Kurma Partners. Tacalyx will use the money to generate a lead candidate antibody […] September 25, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 24 Sep 2019 Rare Metal Could Turbocharge Cancer Light Therapies A team of European and Chinese researchers has developed a light-activated cancer therapy containing the rare metal iridium that could potentially activate the immune system against cancer. In a study published in Nature Chemistry, the drug killed multiple types of cancer cells in a dish when activated by red light. The study also revealed that […] September 24, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 19 Sep 2019 Dutch ‘Electronic Nose’ Predicts Cancer Immunotherapy Success A diagnostic device measuring chemicals in the breath, developed by the Dutch company Breathomix, was able to identify lung cancer patients that wouldn’t respond to cancer immunotherapy with unprecedented accuracy. Researchers at the University of Amsterdam tested the device on 143 lung cancer patients, who were going to receive immunotherapy in the form of the […] September 19, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 18 Sep 2019 UK Cancer Biotech Raises €11M Series A to Break Up Brain Tumors The Cambridge-based company Divide and Conquer has raised €11.3M (£10M) to develop a treatment that breaks up glioblastoma tumors, exposing them to attack by chemotherapy and radiotherapy. With this Series A round, funded by the UK VC firm Medicxi, Divide and Conquer has exited stealth mode a year after its foundation. The company will use […] September 18, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 11 Sep 2019 Italian Biotech Raises €13M to Test Stem Cell Therapy for Cancer The Italian biotech Genenta Science has raised €13.2M in a private round to fund two ongoing phase I/II trials of its stem cell therapy Temferon for blood and brain cancer. Genenta Science will use the money to fund two European phase I/II trials, which the company launched in March. One trial is testing the stem […] September 11, 2019 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 10 Sep 2019 Blood Test Increases Early Lung Cancer Diagnosis in UK Trial A blood test for anti-cancer antibodies, developed by the UK diagnostics company Oncimmune, detected more early cases of lung cancer than standard clinical monitoring procedures in a trial with more than 12,000 patients. Oncimmune’s trial recruited 12,209 patients with a high risk of developing lung cancer through smoking and family history, and monitored them for […] September 10, 2019 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 3 Sep 2019 UK Biotech’s Personalized Immunotherapy gets €110M Series B Boost The UK company Achilles Therapeutics has raised €110M (£100M) to test its personalized cancer cell immunotherapies in humans for the first time. The large Series B round will fund two phase I/IIa clinical trials of Achilles’ preclinical immunotherapy which are expected to start this year: one in non-small cell lung cancer and the other in […] September 3, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 29 Aug 2019 Off-the-Shelf Kidney Cancer Immunotherapy More Than Doubles Recovery in Phase II An off-the-shelf cancer immunotherapy developed by the Swedish biotech Immunicum has eradicated kidney tumors in 11% of treated patients compared with just 4% of patients given standard treatments in a phase II trial. Immunicum is developing a cell immunotherapy to treat metastatic renal cell carcinoma. This advanced form of kidney cancer is particularly hard to […] August 29, 2019 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 12 Aug 2019 Manufacturing Delays Set Back Autolus’ CAR-T Programs by Five Months The UK biotech Autolus’ shares have slumped as construction delays from a new manufacturing site have pushed back its CAR-T cell immunotherapy programs. Autolus is developing treatments for blood cancer that involve engineering patients’ own immune cells to kill cancer cells, known as autologous CAR-T cell immunotherapies. Earlier this year, Autolus licensed a new manufacturing […] August 12, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 6 Aug 2019 ADC Therapeutics and SOPHiA Genetics Team Up to Personalize Cancer Treatment Two companies based in Lausanne, Switzerland — ADC Therapeutics and the genomics company SOPHiA Genetics — have signed a deal to identify patients most likely to respond to a blood cancer drug. ADC Therapeutics will send SOPHiA Genetics blood samples collected from an ongoing phase II trial. The trial is testing a treatment for patients […] August 6, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Interview 22 Jul 2019 Turning Shelved Drugs into a New Promise for Immuno-Oncology After working for 12 years at Merck, Catherine Pickering decided to take a risk and create iOnctura, a spin-out company exploring a new application in immuno-oncology for a drug candidate that had been shelved. In the last decade, there has been a massive boom in the development of cancer therapies that use and enhance the […] July 22, 2019 - 5 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Startup Scout 19 Jul 2019 This Biotech Breaks Down ‘Undruggable’ Proteins to Treat Cancer In the Polish city of Wrocław, Captor Therapeutics is developing cancer treatments that destroy disease-causing proteins. Mission: To develop cancer treatments able to degrade proteins that are normally outside the reach of traditional drugs, called the ‘undruggable proteome’. Small molecule drugs are able to target a small minority of proteins in the cell, such as […] July 19, 2019 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email