New AI tools and drug screening based on human cells and organoids promise a quantum leap in the success rate of drug development and in the processing of data from high-throughput analyses as well as a revolution in diagnostics. The SLAS Europe 2024 conference in Barcelona highlighted the latest advances set to transform the entire biopharma sector.

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CN Bio, a leading provider of Organ-on-a-chip Systems and solutions that accelerate drug discovery and development workflows, today announced the launch of its PhysioMimix® Bioavailability assay kit: Human 18. Harnessing the capabilities of the PhysioMimix Multi-organ System, the kit enhances lead optimization and preclinical testing pipelines, providing an all-in-one solution to generate predictive insights into human oral bioavailability, and better inform lead candidate selection.

Chinese researchers headed by Prof. Dr. Hongbing Deng from Wuhan University report they were able to absorb up to 99.9% of microplastics in water, which could help solve one of the most pressing environmental problems.

The Dutch-Swiss company with operations also in Zurich, Switzerland, has raised US$73m in a Series B and will continue to expand its AI research, sales, and operations teams. The new announcement comes around a year after raising €21.92m in a Series A funding round.

Genentech, the US arm of Swiss-based Roche AG, plans to acquire its long-time partner in allogeneic CAR-T blood cancer and gene therapies, Poseida Therapeutics Inc, for up to US$1.5bn.

The General Court of the EU orders the European Commission to pay the costs in the case of Aplidin® against the Spanish company PharmaMar SA, in which an EU marketing authorisation was not granted due to conflict-of-interests within the CHMP of the European Medicines Agency.

We live in an era of industrial transformation with the implementation of digital tools to handle increasing data amounts, as well as automation to facilitate workflows. Of course, this development does not stop at the bioprocess industry. Digital tools offer the possibility to enhance working efficiency and monitor your bioreactor culture without the need to be in the lab. Introducing BioNsight® cloud, a true cloud-based software solution for bioprocess monitoring and analysis, fully integrated into the Eppendorf bioprocess control software DASware® control 6.

Matt Gunnison was appointed as the new CEO of Biosynth, headquartered in Staad (CH). He started in November.

Researcher from China, Germany and the US have developed a method for designing large new proteins with pre-defined properties in the lab using Alphafold2.

Circio Holding ASA has inked a collaboration with Certest Biotec, SL to find  and test circVec LNP-formulations to deliver its circular RNA therapeutics to target tissues for gene therapies.