News and Trends 29 Oct 2020 Universal Flu Vaccines Yield Second Clinical Failure This Year In a blow to hopes for better protection from seasonal flu, last week’s phase III failure of BiondVax’s universal flu vaccine follows the phase II flop of Vaccitech’s flu vaccine in January. Last week proved a major setback for the Israeli biotech BiondVax. The company’s vaccine — designed to protect against multiple strains of flu […] October 29, 2020 - 5 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 17 Aug 2020 CureVac Continues Covid-19 Vaccine Funding Frenzy with €180M IPO The share price of CureVac has skyrocketed almost fivefold after the Covid-19 vaccine developer priced a Nasdaq IPO at €180M ($213M). The excitement around messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines against Covid-19 could also benefit other players in mRNA therapeutics. CureVac’s IPO was priced at €14 ($16) per share, giving the German company a valuation of around […] August 17, 2020 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 8 Jul 2020 Osivax Raises €32M to Develop Universal Coronavirus and Influenza Vaccines Osivax, a Lyon-based biotechnology company, secured €17.5M from the European Innovation Council and €15.1M from Bpifrance. The funding will be used to develop vaccines that protect from all current – and even future – flu and coronavirus outbreaks. Most current vaccines have a specific target protein they work against. They train the immune system to […] July 8, 2020 - 3 minutesmins - By Kostas Vavitsas Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 18 Jun 2020 Belgian mRNA Vaccine for Covid-19 Receives €34M Series B Boost Belgian biotech eTheRNA has secured €34M in Series B funding to progress to the clinic its Covid-19 vaccine candidate and cancer immunotherapies made from messenger RNA. The company’s five existing investors contributed to the round, including Dutch VC firm LSP, and the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, based in Germany. Four new investors also contributed — […] June 18, 2020 - 3 minutesmins - By Helen Albert Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
In Depth 18 May 2020 Will Covid-19 Change the Face of Vaccine Development? The unprecedented scale of the current Covid-19 pandemic has led to a vaccine ‘race’ the like of which has never been seen before. This may change the face of vaccine development forever. Since the English physician Edward Jenner invented the first smallpox vaccine in 1796, vaccines have resulted in dramatic reductions in deaths from previously […] May 18, 2020 - 13 minutesmins - By Helen Albert Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 24 Apr 2020 First Volunteers Dosed with European Coronavirus Vaccine The first European vaccine for coronavirus disease to enter clinical trials has been administered to UK volunteers in a project led by the University of Oxford. One volunteer was injected with the coronavirus vaccine and another with a control vaccine yesterday in a phase I trial that aims to recruit over 1,000 participants. The trial […] April 24, 2020 - 3 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Startup Scout 27 Mar 2020 This Startup is Making a Cancer Vaccine out of Viruses Valo Therapeutics is operating both in the UK and Finland to develop a cancer vaccine based on a virus designed to kill tumors. Mission: To combine two different immunotherapy techniques — oncolytic viruses and cancer vaccines — into one treatment for solid tumors. Immunotherapy has transformed the cancer treatment landscape, offering therapies such as checkpoint […] March 27, 2020 - 4 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 24 Mar 2020 Vaccitech’s Prostate Cancer Vaccine Shows Promise in Phase II The UK immunotherapy company Vaccitech has announced promising initial results from a phase IIa trial of a therapeutic vaccine that could offer a new way to treat advanced prostate cancer. In the open-label trial, the University of Oxford spin-off enrolled 23 patients with advanced castration-resistant prostate cancer. The patients received the company’s viral vector vaccine […] March 24, 2020 - 2 minutesmins - By Anita Chakraverty Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 3 Feb 2020 CureVac Bids to Develop First mRNA Coronavirus Vaccine RNA vaccine developer CureVac will receive a grant of up to €8.3M from a global partnership to develop an mRNA vaccine against the new coronavirus strain from China. The agreement follows on from an existing collaboration launched in 2019, when the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI, granted CureVac €30M to develop facilities that […] February 3, 2020 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
Startup Scout 24 Jan 2020 This Company is Using Moths to Make Vaccines Madrid-based company Algenex is using moths as natural bioreactors to improve the speed and scalability of making proteins used in vaccines and diagnostics. Mission: To harness nature for simple, scalable, and cost-efficient recombinant protein manufacture. While many proteins are manufactured using bacteria, some are made using insect cells because these cells are sometimes better […] January 24, 2020 - 4 minutesmins - By External Contributor Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 9 Jan 2020 Emergex Vaccines Secures €10M to Advance Synthetic Vaccine Development The UK biotech Emergex Vaccines has raised over €9.9M in a Series A funding round, which will allow it to progress the development of vaccines against diseases such as dengue, influenza, and Ebola to phase I clinical trials. Emergex specializes in the development of ‘set-point’ vaccines, which company CEO and co-founder Thomas Rademacher describes as […] January 9, 2020 - 3 minutesmins - By External Contributor Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 20 Dec 2019 Update: First Ever Ebola Vaccine Gets US and EU Approval Update (20/12/2019): After getting conditional approval in Europe in November, Merck has received FDA approval for its Ebola vaccine, the first to be approved in both regions. Published on 13/11/2019 The big pharma company Merck has won a conditional marketing authorization from the European Commission for the Ebola vaccine Ervebo, the first to be approved. […] December 20, 2019 - 2 minutesmins - By Jonathan Smith Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email