News and Trends 12 Dec 2016 French Biotech Puts a New Lyme Disease Vaccine on the Horizon There is currently no vaccine for the fast-growing disease in the US, & treatments cost over $1Bn every year. Valneva might have a vaccine to stem the tide. Valneva, a commercial-stage biotech based in Lyon, France, has just received clearance from the FDA and its European counterpart to begin clinical trials for its experimental Lyme Disease […] December 12, 2016 - 2 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 12 Dec 2016 With a new €120M Infusion, Pocket NGS CEO talks Success and Strategy Seeking to disrupt the NGS market, Oxford Nanopore is rolling in cash. Before we heard the news, we sat down with CEO Gordon Sanghera to talk about the company’s success. December has been a stellar month for Oxford Nanopore. Just over a week ago, Oxford Nanopore’s MinION device was used to sequence the whole genome of a number […] December 12, 2016 - 9 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 1 Dec 2016 UPDATE: The HIV Frontier starts Phase III Vaccine trials in South Africa Update (01/12/2016): The HVTN 702 trial has been started, making it the first HIV vaccine efficacy study in 7 years worldwide. Results are expected in late 2020. Originally published 25/07/2016 A Phase IIb/III trial for an experimental HIV vaccine just started in South Africa. The therapy, co-funded by the NIH and the Gates Foundation, is a combination […] December 1, 2016 - 3 minutesmins - By Denise Neves Gameiro Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 28 Nov 2016 Finally a Cure for the Common Cold? And it’s Needle-free! Mucosis is starting Phase I trials for SynGEM, a needle-free vaccine against RSV, which causes 200k deaths per year and has a huge cost for both healthcare and the economy. Mucosis is a biotech from the Netherlands developing needle-free vaccines. The company has now initiated the first human trial for SynGEM, a nasal spray vaccine against […] November 28, 2016 - 2 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 18 Nov 2016 Microfluidics and Biosensors to tackle Antibiotic Resistance A little biosensor can analyze if there are antibiotics in your blood in 10 minutes. Developed by researchers from the University of Freiburg, the system could be used to develop a personalized course of antibiotics, but also to test food and water. The objective? Slow down the rise of multi-resistant bacteria. The World Antibiotic Awareness […] November 18, 2016 - 3 minutesmins - By Denise Neves Gameiro Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 14 Nov 2016 USB key Diagnostic could help manage HIV Treatment Anywhere A new method of gene sequencing has brought us an HIV diagnostic on a “USB stick”, which determines the levels of the virus with one drop of blood and in under 30 minutes. Once perfected, the technology could be the tool for HIV management as glucose meters are for diabetes. While pharma and research work […] November 14, 2016 - 3 minutesmins - By Denise Neves Gameiro Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 9 Nov 2016 Up, up and away! CureVac’s money pile now Totals €325M CureVac has raised an additional €27M ($29.5M) that will help the company keep on its track to be the first one to launch a mRNA therapy, a technology that can revolutionize how drugs are designed. CureVac is a German company in the billion-euro biotech club at the forefront of messenger RNA (mRNA) therapies, a technology that […] November 9, 2016 - 3 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 27 Oct 2016 Oxitec scales up Mosquito production with a new Factory in Brazil Since Brazil became the first country in the world to deploy GM mosquitos, Oxitec has opened a factory there to produce its Friendly Aedes aegypti. Oxitec has opened a large-scale mosquito factory in Piracicaba, Brazil, to scale up production of their Friendly Aedes aegypti mosquitos. These mosquitos are effectively sterilized so they don’t transmit infectious […] October 27, 2016 - 2 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 25 Oct 2016 This Diagnostic Tool beats the Standard for Respiratory Infection Tests Curetis is drastically reducing the time required to test for severe infectious diseases. The newest incorporation is expected early next year and could soon substitute the hospital standards. Curetis is a German biotech that commercializes diagnostic technologies for infectious diseases. After a very successful IPO last year, the company is advancing its Unyvero platform for fast diagnostics. The […] October 25, 2016 - 2 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 20 Oct 2016 German Record-deal Antiviral drug Succeeds in Phase III AiCuris’ Letermovir succeeds in Phase III after being licensed to MSD in a record €442.5M deal. It acts on a novel CMV target to treat bone marrow transplant infections. AiCuris is a spin-out company from Bayer, Germany’s biggest Pharma, that focuses on developing drugs for infectious diseases. The company licensed its candidate Letermovir (AIC246) to MSD (Merck & co.) in 2012, making it the […] October 20, 2016 - 2 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 26 Sep 2016 Terrible Turing hasn’t given up on Toxoplasmosis (or its Karma) The biopharmaceutical company’s Swiss division just published computational studies aiming to improve Daraprim, after its former CEO, Martin Shkreli, attempted to justify the scandalous 5000% price hike as a boost for its R&D. A little over a year ago, Martin Shkreli, founder and then-CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, hiked the price of a common medication for toxoplasmosis by […] September 26, 2016 - 3 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email