News and Trends 29 Sep 2016 Debunking the Immuno-Oncology Hype: is it as good as it sounds? CAR-T therapies have gained plenty of attention lately by promising to end cancer with a one-off treatment. But all that glitters is not gold; experts remind us it is important to be critical about the immuno-oncology hype. Immuno-oncology has become all the rage lately, and the hype has led to some major investments, acquisitions, deals and partnerships. It seems […] September 29, 2016 - 5 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 28 Sep 2016 Biotech is one of the biggest Employers in Europe As part of the European Biotech Week, EuropaBio shared yesterday a study revealing that Industrial Biotech has created 486,000 full-time jobs and contributes €31.6B to the EU. This new data emphasizes the huge role that Biotech plays on the continent’s economy. The biotech industry was in the spotlight this week at the European Parliament, where the report was presented, and it […] September 28, 2016 - 2 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 28 Sep 2016 Little Biotechs manoeuvre to outfox Big Pharma in Immuno-Oncology Giants like BMS and GSK have been throwing all the money they can at developing immuno-oncological treatments. In twin deals, four smaller companies are forging new paths to cure cancer with the human immune response. A pair of agreements among immuno-oncology biotechs have been made in attempts to outflank big pharma competition. In Scandinavia, Orion will fund […] September 28, 2016 - 2 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 28 Sep 2016 ITW: Prexton Therapeutics CEO explains Development of new Parkinson’s Drug For our first interview at the SACHS Conference in Basel yesterday, I met with François Conquet, founder and CEO of Prexton Therapeutics. His company’s treatment for Parkinson’s Disease just passed Phase I with flying colors. Prexton Therapeutics, based in Switzerland, has been focused on discovering new small molecules to treat Parkinson’s, and one of them, an mGluR4 positive […] September 28, 2016 - 1 minutemin - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 27 Sep 2016 Another “Almost” against Alzheimers: Lundbeck’s Phase III Flop Alzheimer’s Disease is the most common form of dementia, affecting 15M people across the world. With the most recent failure of idalopirdine, a cure will remain elusive for now. As Derek Lowe observes, “Alzheimers therapies have, for the most part, been a cliff over which people push bales of money.” Unfortunately, the late-stage failure of […] September 27, 2016 - 2 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 26 Sep 2016 A Colony from a single-cell? All possible with Takara Bio Induced pluripotent stem cells were discovered back in 2006. Since then, they have become a valuable new source of pluripotent cells for research and therapy. And thanks to gene editing technologies, researchers can induce a single mutation in those cells for a broad range of applications. However, the main challenge is the proliferation of a single-cell with […] September 26, 2016 - 3 minutesmins - By Jerome Topsent Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 26 Sep 2016 It’s Biotech Week! What’s Up in Europe? The annual celebration of biotech has started! From today through this Sunday, October 2nd, a continent-wide festival, Biotech Week, is happening as part of a larger global affair. Check out the event program and Invest Europe’s infographic on what’s up in Europe! EuropaBio has kicked off the European instalment of global Biotech Week, a week-long series […] September 26, 2016 - 2 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 26 Sep 2016 UPDATE: AC Immune rakes in €52.5M IPO for assault on Alzheimers It’s not the $700M headlines imply, but AC Immune is winding up to make a splashy IPO of €52.5M to establish itself in the Alzheimer’s Disease space. You might have read about AC Immune‘s ‘$700M IPO’ and thought, “gee, that can’t be right – that sum is roughly half of the total from all European companies […] September 26, 2016 - 2 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner 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
News and Trends 26 Sep 2016 This French Founder is on a mission of Connecting Medical Devices What happens when you mix Internet of Things and Medical Devices? That’s what the French Startup, Instent, and its co-founder, Franz Bozsak, intend to find out. I had a chat with him after he won the EY prize of the Best Parisian Entrepreneur of the Year for his startup. My first question was which language should we speak? Bozsak is […] September 26, 2016 - 3 minutesmins - By Philip Hemme Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 24 Sep 2016 The Future of Portugal as explained by Microorganisms Microbiology makes its mark at the first edition of the London Design Biennale taking place in Somerset House. Portugal’s exhibition by Marta de Menezes uses bacteria and viruses to create changing art that represents the future direction of the country. With the common topic “Design by Utopia“, 30 nations have interpreted utopic and dystopic futures using art to […] September 24, 2016 - 3 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 23 Sep 2016 SELLAS wants to sell us an Immunotherapy for Mesothelioma After Cyprus, we mosey back to the mainland to visit the country gave the world the cuckoo clock. That’s right, we’re Schweiz-bound. In Switzerland, we’ll meet an immuno-oncology biotech, SELLAS Life Sciences. City: Zug (Zurich-area), Switzerland Founded: 2012 Employees: 11 – 50 Financial Data: None available…what a secretive cohort. Mission: SELLAS Life Sciences is a development-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on […] September 23, 2016 - 1 minutemin - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email