News and Trends 4 Feb 2019 Swedish Biotech Receives EU Grant for High-Accuracy Kidney Cancer Test The Swedish biotech Elypta has received a Horizon 2020 grant of €2.4M to fund a clinical trial of a blood and urine test that provides an accurate diagnosis of renal cell carcinoma. The clinical trial aims to validate Elypta’s technology as a monitoring tool in patients who have been treated for the kidney cancer renal […] February 4, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 28 Jan 2019 Update: US District Court Rules Against MorphoSys’ Cancer Immunotherapy Patents Update (01/02/2019): MorphoSys has agreed to end its long-running legal battle with Genmab and Janssen, after the US District Court of Delaware declared three of its cancer immunotherapy patents invalid. MorphoSys began the dispute over Darzalex (daratumumab), Genmab and Janssen’s approved antibody therapy for the blood cancer multiple myeloma. MorphoSys alleged that Darzalex infringed on three of […] January 28, 2019 - 3 minutesmins - By Dani Bancroft Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Startup Scout 18 Jan 2019 This Biotech Turns Rejected Organs Into Drug Testing Models Engitix, a spinout from University College London, makes accurate disease models from human tissue that include the extracellular matrix from outside of the cells, an often overlooked but essential factor in the way cells behave inside our bodies. Mission: To make disease models in the lab that include the extracellular matrix, making them more […] January 18, 2019 - 4 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 15 Jan 2019 Sanofi Obtains License for French Company’s Antibody Engineering Platform Sanofi has signed a licensing deal with French biotech Biomunex, whose antibody technology has the potential to develop new immunotherapy treatments for cancer and infectious diseases. Sanofi will give Biomunex an upfront payment, along with further installments upon achieving key development milestones. The amounts have not been disclosed. Biomunex is able to make a wide variety […] January 15, 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 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 20 Dec 2018 Personalized Immunotherapy for Brain Cancer Succeeds in Clinical Trials A European trial has proved the feasibility and efficacy of treating cancer with a personalized immunotherapy tailored to each patient. The phase I/II trial, run across six European centers, tested a combination of two personalized vaccines in patients with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer. The first vaccine was designed to immunize the patients […] December 20, 2018 - 3 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 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
News and Trends 4 Dec 2018 Microbiome Therapy Shows Early Promise in Cancer Patients A clinical trial run by MaaT Pharma has shown that restoring the microbiome of patients undergoing chemotherapy has potential to improve the outcome of patients with the blood cancer acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The microbes living in our gut can have a big influence on the success of cancer treatments. Some microorganisms are known to […] December 4, 2018 - 3 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 3 Dec 2018 First-in-Class Cancer Drug Gets €50M Boost The biopharmaceutical company Aprea Therapeutics has raised €50M to fund a Phase III trial of its first-in-class cancer drug candidate, which kills tumor cells by restoring the function of a key anti-cancer protein called p53. Aprea’s planned Phase III trial will test the company’s lead candidate small molecule drug combined with the chemotherapy drug azacitidine. […] December 3, 2018 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email