Swiss cancer vaccine developer AMAL Therapeutics has raised €8m in a Series B round led by existing investor Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, and new investors BioMedPartners and Helsinn Investment Fund.

Six European states, together with the Wellcome Trust, and South Africa have pledged €56.5m to help develop new antibiotics that break resistance.

The Allegro STR bioreactor family combines Pall’s bioprocess engineering expertise, cell culture know-how and our drive for quality into a series of single-use bioreactors that deliver consistent and scalable cell culture performance across the range.

Researchers at the University of Sussex have invented a new algorithm that could revolutionise patient monitoring and activity tracking.

French Ajinomoto Eurolysine SAS, part of the world leading producer of amino acids by fermentation, has received a positive safety assessment from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) for use of freeze-dried genetically modified E. coli bacteria as a feedstuff supplement. 

Swiss Novartis AG has received US market authorisation for its first-in-class CAR-T cell therapy Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel-T). As severe cytokine storms seemed to be generally linked to CAR-T therapies such as Kymriah, the FDA also authorised Roche’s anti-IL-6R antibody Actemra (tocilizumab) as first-in-class treatment to manage them.

The US Food and Drug Administration has granted US market authorisation to Boehringer Ingelheim’s biosimilar anti-TNFa-antibody adalimumab.

Supported by the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), the European Investment Bank (EIB) has granted a  €25m loan to the Austrian pediatric cancer specialist Apeiron Biologics AG to boost its pipeline of antibodies, fusion proteins and low molecular weight checkpoint inhibitors. 

The possibilities offered by CRISPR/Cas9, TALENs and other new genome editing technologies are making the mouths of plant breeders water – and not just because the methods give seed developers new options when it comes to optimising traits such as yield, resistance to environmental stress, diseases or pests. Gene-edited plants could soon make inroads even with Europe’s strict regulators, and throw open the door to tastier, healthier food.

In mid-June, the German Federal Constitutional Court asked the German President not to sign legislation designed to implement the EU Unified Patent Court (UPC, EU Agreement 16351/12) and Unitary Patent (EU Regulation 1257/12). Now, there are hints for a further delay. The constitutional complaint behind the delay, rumoured to be brought up by a German life sciences IP expert, has led to a stop of hiring German judges for the UPC.