French green chemistry pioneer, Carbios SA (Clermont-Ferrand) announced in March that it has secured equity financing of €2.5m from Kepler Cheuvreux through the acquisition of 380,000 shares over 24 months.
Lab equipment giant Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. is growing even bigger.
Since US senators in February conveyed the impression that drug developers might have misused market monopolies related to orphan drugs (ODs) to overprice their compounds, the status has come under closer scrutiny. Neither the US nor Europe currently have consistent approaches for deriving value for OD therapies. Pooling expertise and scattered patient data across borders could help ease both diagnosis and development, providing a foundation for pricing and giving patients much faster access to treatments.
The concept has been around for more than a century, but recent advances in the field are causing numerous experts to say its widely underused. The goal of allergen immunotherapy (AIT) is to induce a specific immune tolerance by confronting patients with increasing levels of allergens. AIT developers are now working on improving efficacy and safety, while at the same time trying to speed up the still lengthy process of desensitisation. Peanuts in particular are in the crosshairs, as they cause one of the most life-threatening common allergies in humans.
Uncertainty regarding the amount of future funding and political support from the European Commission for the bioeconomy is set to hamper investments into the switch from oil-based industry production to renewable, bio-based manufacture in Europe. The schedule for the review of the bioeconomy strategy has been delayed until the end of 2017. More importantly, it is not yet certain if the strategy will be updated.
Drug makers have only until two years from now to make their drugs and packaging counterfeit-resistant. By 9 February, 2019, every prescription drug pack must carry a 2D data matrix code that can be tracked by wholesalers and pharmacists along each stage of the value chain. Additionally, each pack must be sealed with an anti-tampering device. If companies and the NMVOs that handle national databases can’t manage the task, their drugs cannot be sold after the deadline.
Until recently, aroma compounds were either sourced directly from plants or made from petrochemicals with the help of chemical synthesis processes. Now a handful of biotechnological production approaches are making headway and inroads into the key sector. There havent been real breakthroughs in big F&F markets yet, but biotech companies look poised to change the industry forever.
German Adrenomed AG has decided to start clinical Phase II tests of the very first personalised treatment for the six million patients with acute congestive heart failure. Large trials suggest that the company can stratify patients resistant to diuretics standard therapy by a proprietary companion diagnostics blood test. Adrenomed will assess whether its first-in-class antibody adrecizumab can reverse the congestion that that manifests as pulmonary edema.
Italian, Swedish, and German researchers have started recruitment for a systematic investigation into the factors affecting longevity.
German and Swedish researchers have presented a strategy to predict and improve chemotherapy outcomes in patients with acute myelogenous leukaemia (AML). Currently, the five-year overall survival rate of AML patients treated with cytarabine (ara-C) standard chemotherapy ranges from 20-70%.