Non-profit foundation BioInnovation Institute (BII) has unveiled its latest commitment to driving innovation and growth within the life science sector. Six promising companies will receive crucial financial support through BII’s Venture House programme.

At a council meeting, a majority of EU agriculture ministers have supported the draft regulation on new genomic technologies (NGT) proposed by the EU Commission in early July.

German researchers have developed a new way to detect the about 300 cullin-RING ligases (CRLs) which specifically trigger destruction of specific proteins in the cell.

According to Swiss bioethicists, deregulation of genetic engineering rules for plants optimised through targeted mutation and cisgenetics will make little contribution to climate protection by 2050.

CAR-T therapies represent a new successful strategy for the treatment of hematological malignancies; however, recent studies have revealed some limitations, including the occurrence of graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), neurotoxicity, and cytokine release syndromes (CRS). This has prompted researchers to look for alternative, safer cells, such as natural killer (NK) cells 1. NK cells are lymphocytes that kill tumor cells and virus-infected cells non-specifically, without prior sensitization. CAR-NK therapy involves the modification of NK cells with mature chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) technology to exploit their unique target cell recognition mechanism and broad tumor-killing ability. Figure 1 illustrates the CAR-NK therapeutic strategy 1. Compared with CAR-T therapy, CAR-NK therapy has numerous advantages, such as lower GVHD and significantly reduced CRS toxicity and immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome toxicity, which enhance overall safety 2, 3. In addition, NK cells have multiple tumor recognition sites, thus potentially reducing antigenic escape failure 4.

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the University of Oxford have entered into a strategic partnership to accelerate the development of globally accessible vaccines against endemic outbreaks.

NorthX Biologics AB has appointed Dr Janet Hoogstraate as its new Chief Executive Officer, effective at the end of August.

Bayer and Pairwise extend their collaboration in precision breeding for five further years to develop CRISPR applications for Bayer’s Preceon™ Smart Corn System.

Mysthera Therapeutics AG has launched in Basel with $3.5m in seed funding from founding investor Forty51 Ventures. The capital will be used to advance its preclinical portfolio in a variety of autoimmune indications. The focus is on pan-PIM kinase inhibitors that uniquely modulate multilineage immune cell functions.

Women’s health specialist Mithra Pharmaceuticals SA has entered into a definitive agreement to raise €20m in gross proceeds via a private placement of 10 million new ordinary shares with Armistice Capital.