The US Food & Drug Administration has granted accelerated approval to Adaptimmune’s Tecelra as the world’s first therapy with genetically engineered T cells to fight a solid tumour.

Lori A. Ball has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer of UK-based Astoriom. She will be responsible for driving the development of Astoriom’s sample management business in the US, UK and Europe.

French-Austrian vaccine maker Valneva SE has secured exclusive worldwide rights to commercialise LimmaTech Biologics AG’s S4V Shigella vaccine that will be tested in two Phase II trials starting in H2/2024.

With an investment of its venture arm (BI-VF), Boehringer Ingelheim underlines its committment to expand the reach of cancer immune therapies. The Series A financing in Chinese Synthetica Pioneering that engineers oncolytic bacteria to deliver toxic payloads or modulators of the tumour environment to solid tumours follows an investment in T3 Pharmaceuticals.

As one of the last Big Pharma companies, GlaxoSmithKline plc has inked a drug discovery licence option deal for up to 10 programmes with US-based biotech platform company supplier Flagship Pioneering Inc.

The subject of impact measurement is of crucial importance for cluster organizations as they continuously aim to enhance their support to their ecosystems with ever more innovative and efficient services. Therefore, the INNAXE’s consortium has recently developed a “Toolbox for Cluster Organisations” allowing them to easily benchmark their regions and monitor the impact of their activities towards their stakeholders.

Not the German InFamily Foods subsidiary The Cultivated B, but Gourmey SAS, founded in Paris in 2019 by Antoine Davydoff, Nicolas Morin-Forest and Victor Sayous, has submitted the first EU authorisation application for a cell-based meat product, a duck liver pâté (Foie gras), to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

Belgian GPCR specialist Confo Therapeutics NV has raised €60m in an Series B financing round led by Ackermans & van Haaren to advance clinical development of two clinical programmes and preclinical candidates to treat rare endocrine diseases and obesity.

Swiss AC Immune and its partner Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc have been granted FDA Fast Track Designation for their active anti-pTau vaccine ACI-35.030/JNJ-2056 to treat Alzheimer’s disease.

A research consortium led by Charité in Berlin has found a protein pattern in 100 patients with the common blood cancer multiple myeloma and 38 healthy controls that independently identifies a poor prognosis and provides new targets for treating the incurable disease.