The European Commission has closed its very first infringement procedure under the Penalty Regulation. During an inspection at Roche’s UK headquarters in 2012 the British MHRA found data on 80,000 not properly reported adverse events of approved Roche meds, 15,161 of which included deaths. 

Hadean Ventures announced the launch of Hadean Capital I, a fund that will invest up to € 100 m in life science companies, with a particular focus on the Nordic region.

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) recommended seven medicines for approval at its December 2017 meeting, including two orphan medicines, and one biosimilar.

Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst (SBC) has announced that Dr. Sally Ann Forsyth is set to join the company as CEO in March 2018.

Belgian reMYND N.V. has out licenced worldwide commercialisation rights for its small molecule programme ReS39 in diabetes to Novo Nordisk A/S. The drug impedes death of insulin-producing beta cells by preventing the formation of cytotoxic islet amyloid polypeptide (IAPP) aggregates.

A new, non-invasive tuberculosis urine test prevents common disadvantages of the standard tuberculin skin test: Measuring lipoarabinomannan glycan from M. tuberculosis, it detects the active disease in early stage and does not interfere with co-infections or weakened immune system.

Life sciences investment group LSP has launched the largest fund in Europe dedicated to late-stage medical technology assets, including diagnostics and digital health.

Belgian start-up company Aelin Therapeutics NV secured the funds to push development of candidate drugs arising from its Pept-in™ protein knockdown platform, which harnesses protein aggregation to induce functional knockdown of target proteins.

Dutch llama antibody specialist ArgenX met the safety endpoint in a Phase II trial with ARGX 113 (efgartigimod), a first-in-class antibody that lowers pathogenic levels of IgG, in patients with the autoimmune disease myasthenia gravis.

In vitro diagnostics leader Ortho Clinical Diagnostics (Raritan, US) expands his assay portfolio with Sphingotec’s first-in-class biomarker test that predicts residual edema and re-hospitalization in patients with congestive heart failure.