Viral Vectors?Commercial-scale manufacturing demands a high yield of potent rAAV products. Understanding the metabolism during cell growth, especially at high densities, molecular effects of transfection or infection in production is vital. In addition, the choice of producer cell type determines the PTMs of the AAV capsid and potency. Successful trials in tweaking cell factories’ genes to boost rAAV particle yields set the direction for further development.

The European Commission has now recommended concrete steps that, while not yet final, would require Illumina to "swiftly" reverse its controversial $7.1bn acquisition of Grail.

Our species – modern humans, or homo sapiens sapiens – has ever striven for progress. And progress was greatly enabled by fire, a fundamental chemical phenomenon that allows the fast release of large amounts of energy.

Renewed focus on cancer: COVID-19 vaccine company BioNTech SE (Nasdaq: BNTX) and Ryvu Therapeutics S.A., located in Krakow (Warsaw Stock Exchange: RVU), a Polish clinical-stage cancer therapeutics development company, announced that the companies have entered into a research collaboration for several multi-target immunotherapy programmes, as well as an exclusive licensing agreement for Ryvu’s STING agonist portfolio as stand-alone small molecules.

AstraZeneca announced an agreement to acquire Neogene Therapeutics Inc. (Neogene), a global clinical-stage biotechnology company spezialised in next-generation T-cell receptor therapies (TCR-Ts) that offer a novel cell therapy approach for targeting cancer. The acquisition delivers an initial payment of $200m on deal closing, and a further up to $120m in both contingent milestones-based and non-contingent consideration.

Novo Nordisk A/S invests €726m to expand facilities and to produce APIs to supply the company’s global clinical trials.

SOTIO Biotech a.s. has exercised its first of five exclusive, target-specific options for antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) SOT106 under its agreement with LegoChem Biosciences Inc.

London-based computer vision specialist V7 Ltd has baged $33m in Series A financing co-led by AI-focused Radical Ventures and Temasek.

Latest investment trends were presented by BIOTECH Insight at the start of the German Equity Forum

C4X Discovery Holdings plc has exclusively licenced its NRF2 Activator programme to AstraZeneca and has got an upfront payment of $2m.