Aleks Engel presenting the REPAIR Impact Fund at the 11th Berlin Conference on Life Sciences. (Picture © Biocom)

At the 11th Berlin Conference, Novo Holdings outlined details of a new €135m investment fund launched to push the development of new drug classes urgently needed to fight antimicrobial resistance. European Biotechnology editors were the first to talk with Aleks Engel, Partner at Novo Holdings, and George Griffin, Chair of the Repair Impact Fund’s Scientific Advisory Board, about the construction and the goal of the fund.

Researchers have applied a self-learning algorithm to distinguish the almost 100 brain cancer types through their methylation pattern in a routine diagnostic setting. The method eliminates inter-pathologist variation in histopathological diagnosis and resulted in a change of diagnoses in up to 12% of prospective cases.

© EBD Group

The tremendous success of last year’s BIO Europe Spring in Barcelona was hard to beat. But the follow-up this year in Amsterdam organised by EBD Group together with Health Holland crystallised as a worthy successor.

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Domainex Ltd, a privately-owned drug discovery services company, has announced the appointment of Dr Bodo Spori as Head of Business Development for Europ.
Hepatitis virus. © Myr Pharma

German MYR Pharma has completed a proof of concept Phase IIb trial with its first-in-class hepatitis D entry inhibitor Myrcludex B, which is developed under the European Medicines Agency’s PRIME scheme. 

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SP Industries Inc. has announced the appointment of Brian Larkin as its President and Chief Executive Officer effective February 19th, replacing William (Bill) Downs who recently retired. 

Pradulent mode of action, © Sanofi/Regeneron

Alirocumab, Sanofi’ s/Regeneron’s PCSK9 inhibitor, in combination with statins has met the endpoint of  reducing the number of  major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) over statin monotherapy in 18,924 high-risk patients.

© MedImmune

Researchers at Medimmune, AstraZeneca’s biologics arm, have identified a mechanism that drives the  autoimmune disease systemic sclerosis.

The BIOKET conferences offered a dense conference program and a B2B matchmaking.
Source: BIOKET
About 300 bioeconomy experts from science and business came together in Strasbourg for the first edition of BIOKET to discuss up-scaling challenges, new processing technologies as well as the potential of synthetic biology and digitalization.
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The adage ‘you are what you eat’ is more than folk wisdom. Evidence that the food you ingest has a major impact on your health grows by the day. It’s now clear the bacteria that colonise the skin and gut from birth on are key sensors for environmental triggers in chronic diseases of civilisation. Ever since research showed that restoring microbiome balance cures 90% of all Clostridium difficile infections, food manufacturers, pharma companies and independent teams have been tracking it in other indications – including multiple sclerosis.