Four orphan drugs, three biosimilars, and one monoclonal antibody therapy have been recommended for EU market approval by the European Medicines Agency’s CHMP this month.

Packshot of Glybera, © uniQure B.V.

With treatment cost of €1m+ per patient, Glybera was the most expensive therapy ever approved in Europe. Now, Uniqure has decided to terminate post-marketing studies required for prolongation of its existing EU conditional market approval.

Viktor Drvota, @ KDev
Following the resignation of erstwhile CEO Jim Van heusden, Karolinska Development has promoted Viktor Drvota to the position of head of the company. Drvota held the position of Chief Investment Officer before.
Synpromics delivers synthetic promotors for application in vector design for cell and gene therapies, CHO cell optimisation in biomanufacturing, industrial and agri-biotech applications, © Synpromics

Synthetic promoter and gene expression specialist Synpromics has completed a £5.2m (€6.2m) financing round with existing investors. 

Raymond Barlow, @ e-Therapeutics
AIM-listed drug discovery company e-Therapeutics plc has a new head. In early April, Raymond Barlow took over as Chief Executive Officer. 
Galapagos NV's headquarters in Mechelen, where the company was founded in 1999, © Galapagos

Autoimmune specialist Galapagos NV (Mechelen, Belgium) has priced its 3,750,000 American Depository Shares (ADSs) in an follow-on offering led by Morgan Stanley at $90 per ADS. 

Dallas Webb, © BB Biotech
In December 2016, US biotech company Ionis Pharmaceuticals’ drug Spinraza received regulatory approval in the US. No doubt: the antisense technology behind Spinraza could be the next big thing

Irish Allergan and Swiss Novartis have agreed to start a proof-of-concept study of a combination of their NASH candidates cenicriviroc (Allergan) and FXR agonist LJN452 (Novartis).

Timo Veromaa, @ Domainex
Domainex has a new Executive Chairman: Timo Veromaa has been appointed to the Board of the British drug discovery services company.
Graphic depicting the organs involved in congestive heart failure, @ sphingotec

sphingotec GmbH and bestbion dx GmbH have signed an agreement to market sphingotec’s innovative sepsis and congestive heart failure test (sphingotest bio-ADM) and acute kidney function monitoring assay (sphingotest penKid) in Germany and Austria.