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 28 Aug 2019 Celgene and Immatics Sign Deal Worth Over €1.35B to Develop Cancer Immunotherapies The US company Celgene has obtained options to three cancer immunotherapy programs from the German biotech Immatics in a deal worth more than €1.35B ($1.5B). Immatics is to receive an upfront payment of €67.5M ($75M), along with up to €455M ($505M) in developmental milestones and royalties for each immunotherapy program. In each program, Immatics will […] August 28, 2019 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 15 Aug 2019 Swiss Scientists Upgrade CRISPR to Edit Many Genes at Once A research group at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, has made it possible to edit hundreds of genes at once with CRISPR gene editing. CRISPR gene editing has revolutionized the biotech industry by providing an easy and quick way to genetically modify organisms. So far, however, CRISPR techniques have only managed to edit a maximum of seven […] August 15, 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 1 Jul 2019 Approval Status of Cancer Cell Therapy at Risk After Halting Phase III Trial Following an unfavorable interim analysis, Milan-based MolMed has suspended a phase III trial of its cell therapy Zalmoxis that could threaten the conditional marketing authorization the treatment received in 2016. The halted clinical trial was evaluating the effects of Zalmoxis on patients with high-risk leukemia that have received a bone marrow transplant. The cell therapy […] July 1, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 25 Jun 2019 US and French Biotech Partnership to Develop Off-the-Shelf Cell Therapies The French biotech Erytech will license its red blood cell drug encapsulation technology to the US cell therapy company SQZ Biotechnologies for up to €50M. The partners plan to develop off-the-shelf cell therapies combining Erytech’s red blood cell drug encapsulation with SQZ Biotechnologies’ technology, which engineers immune cells to attack or protect specific disease targets. […] June 25, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 21 Jun 2019 This Biotech Transports Cell Therapies Without Needing a Freezer The biotech Atelerix, based in Newcastle, UK, can transport cell therapies between different locations with less cost and risk than current methods by encapsulating the cells in a specialized gel. Mission: To eliminate the need for costly cold storage in the cell transport process by preserving cells in a gel. This could save further costs […] June 21, 2019 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 5 Jun 2019 Highlights from European Biotech at ASCO 2019 European biotech companies gathered in Chicago, USA, to share the latest advances in cancer research at the biggest cancer conference of the year, ASCO 2019. This year’s conference has drawn fewer big blockbuster headlines than other years, but there was plenty to see nonetheless. There were results from many different clinical trials by big pharma […] June 5, 2019 - 5 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 3 Jun 2019 Dutch Company Raises €28M to Push Cancer Cell Therapy to European Market The Dutch Kiadis Pharma has raised €27.6M in a private placement to fund the clinical development of immune cell therapies treating blood cancer. The money will fund phase III trials of Kiadis’ lead candidate cell therapy for blood cancer, aimed to get European approval by the end of 2019. In addition, the cash will boost […] June 3, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 29 May 2019 €60M Investment to Boost Oxford Biomedica’s Gene and Cell Therapies The Danish investor Novo Holdings is handing Oxford Biomedica up to €60.6M (£53.5M) to develop gene and cell therapies treating cancer and genetic blindness. The investment will bag Novo Holdings a stake of up to 10.1% in the UK biotech. Oxford Biomedica will use the money to repay a loan totalling €49M ($55M) from the […] May 29, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 13 May 2019 Cell Encapsulation Biotech Raises €7M to Target Cell Therapy Bottlenecks The French company Treefrog Therapeutics has raised over €7M in Series A investment to develop its encapsulation technology to improve the production of stem cells for cell therapies. Part of the Series A money will help Treefrog to automate its stem cell production process by 2021. The round will also fund the development of a […] May 13, 2019 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Interview 25 Apr 2019 European Biotechnology in 2019 and Beyond: What’s Hot and What’s Not? We spend a lot of time focusing on specific developments in biotechnology, but sometimes it’s good to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. With this in mind, I asked three experts at our recent Refresh event in Vienna to share what is hot in European biotech right now and what trends […] April 25, 2019 - 11 minutesmins - By Helen Albert Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email