Entries by Thomas Gabrielczyk

EPO bows to pressure from industry

Following critisism from the industry, the European Patent Office has drafted a proposal to allow exemptions to its Early Certainty Initiative. Industry associations had pressed the EPO not to limit the time to grant a patent to 12 months arguing it would have detrimental effects on the life sciences sector.

EU ombudsman soft-sells safety concerns on HPV jabs

A complaint against the EMA’s handling of a referral procedure related to potential side effects of Sanofi/MSD’s HPV vaccine Gardasil and GSK’s HPV jab Cervarix, filed by the Nordic Cochrane Centre and physicians, has been rejected by the European Ombudsman.

Sanofi acquiring Ablynx

Briefly after Belgian nanobody maker Ablynx rejected a €2.3bn take-over bid of Novo, its board accepted a €3.9bn tender of its R&D partner Sanofi. It’s the second large take-over of Sanofi this month.

EMA recommends seven new drugs for market

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) greenlighted seven medicines for approval at its January 2018 meeting, including one orphan medicine, and one biosimilar.

New wave of optimism for European biotech stocks

The European biotech stock market witnessed an increase in IPO and follow-on financing volumes in 2017. According to the new BIOCOM capital market report, published in November during BIO-Europe in Berlin, more than half the money was raised on the US Nasdaq. Within Europe, Euronext is still is the most attractive location – but Stockholm is catching up.

Novartis in US$170m licence deal with Spark Therapeutics

Novartis AG has strengthened its ophtalmology portfolio by acquiring a licence for Spark Therapeutics’ voretigene neparvovec (Luxturna), an FDA-approved gene therapy that corrects mutations in RPE65, which leads to juvenile blindness in homozygotous carriers.

Protein keeps breast cancer metastases at bay

Spanish researchers have identified a protein that keeps breast cancer stem cell in a dormant state preventing them from forming metastases. A German team found an endothelial receptor protein that prevents dormant micrometastases in the blood to invade tissue.

Seventure Partners joins US$35m round into Zipongo

Venture capital firm Seventure Partners has joined a US$35m Series B Round in Digital Nutrition Platform Zipongo. The US$9m invested into the Californian company comes from Seventures’ €160m Health for Life Capital fund, the premier fund dedicated to the expanding microbiome and nutrition space. 

European bioeconomy entering the next level

A series of high-level conferences held in autumn and winter focused on current challenges to implementing an industrial scale bioeconomy in Europe. In November, the European Commission unveiled a new stock-take of progress in its Bioeconomy Strategy, ahead of an official revision planned in 2018. In a manifesto, stakeholders demand a holistic policy framework.