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
News and Trends 23 Sep 2016 The Munich Biotech Mafia are at it again, raising €40M for an I/O Startup A new immuno-oncology startup has taken off with a booming round of VC fundraising. Details on its programs are sparse, but the company’s leadership is a veritable who’s who in German biotech, much like the PayPal Mafia. Immuno-oncology is surely an exciting field, but high-profile leadership is a huge bonus when it comes to attracting […] September 23, 2016 - 2 minutesmins - By Evelyn Warner Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 22 Sep 2016 Evotec and Bayer renew their vows and take on Kidney Disease Evotec and Bayer are approaching the 4th anniversary of a successful partnership in endometriosis treatments that made it to clinical trials just last month. To celebrate, they’re starting a new 5-year partnership, this time concerning kidney disease. Evotec has a long list of top-level partners, including Roche, Sanofi, Boehringer Ingelheim and Takeda. After the successful outcome of […] September 22, 2016 - 2 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email
News and Trends 22 Sep 2016 After only 6 months, Akarna seals the deal with Allergan for €44.8M upfront Earlier this week, we announced the launch of a new diagnostic tool for NASH by the French company Genfit. Now, Ireland strikes back with the acquisition of Akarna with a €44.8M upfront payment. Akarna focuses on the development of drugs for Non-Alcoholic Steato-Hepatitis (NASH) and boasts to count with a potentially best-in-class therapeutic candidate still in preclinical trials. The […] September 22, 2016 - 2 minutesmins - By Clara Rodríguez Fernández Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email