Last year, the  G7 heads declared to end funding for the oil industry by the end of this year. At the COP27 in November, the WHO and United Nations renewed promises to redirect the hundreds of billions of dollars invested annually in fossil fuels to fund renewable energy initiatives.

Strategic planning for the development of a novel therapy is critically important to reduce financial burdens, save time, and find the best, shortest path forwards. No two products will have the same pathway or same criterion for optimisation, but early, forward-looking planning can result in greater efficiency and a better understanding of key decisions and timepoints along the course of novel therapy development.  

Maintaining the integrity of tumour biomarkers during processing and storage is of great importance for the accurate diagnosis and prognosis of many diseases, including cancers. To safely store samples for research or clinical uses, freezing procedures are used to arrest the ­degradation of biomarkers. However, the stability of these molecules depends upon long-term ­storage conditions.

A decade ago, the news about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch went viral. Since then, a multitude of startups proliferated on a mission to create ecological alternatives to the ubiquitous fossil-based plastics. At ECBF, we are closely monitoring the emerging materials for packaging applications, by far the main use case of plastics.

The AI Health Innovation Cluster is bringing together leading scientists at the ­interface
of artificial intelligence (AI), healthcare, and data science. The goal is to combine and further develop the outstanding research networks and infrastructures in modern health data sciences that have emerged in the Rhine-Neckar region in Germany in recent years.

SARS-COV-2 exposed our vulnerability and strategic weakness at European­ level, in terms of biotechnological manufacturing capacity.

One of the most distinguishing hallmarks of tumours is their ability to avoid immune recognition. New immunotherapies have focused on breaking down those barriers, leading to treatment breakthroughs for blood cancers. While these therapies have shown great promise for some indications, we still lack effective therapies for many others. A novel route to address this is to the restore innate immunity’s ability to fight cancer.

At the CPHI, the world’s largest pharmaceutical event, which attracted 40,405 visitors this year, it became evident that the COVID-19 pandemic has had an extremely positive impact on the (bio)pharmaceutical sector. A new CPHI annual survey shows how business will develop in the future. Particularly, the prospects for CDMOs and CROs are excellent.

Unit-dose?The SARS-CoV2 pandemic caused 6.3 million deaths and contaminated 545 million people across the world. In spite of the rapid development and approval of vaccines, the shortages of consumables like glass vials limited the distribution of prophylactic vaccines. Blow-Fill-Seal (BFS) is an alternative solution with advantages that could play an important role in vaccine distribution worldwide.

The French company Standing Ovation uses precision fermentation to create the protein that gives cheese its unique properties. With his pitch, co-founder and CEO Frédéric P’ques took the prize at the start-up pitch of the Industria Biotech.