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 immunitys 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.
With a new expansion coming online in Copenhagen, AGC Biologics is offering more capacity in Europe for mammalian biologics projects using innovative single-use bioreactor technology. This is the latest in a string of new investments from the global CDMO to expand capacity and upgrade technology at its sites in Europe, Japan and the United States.
The Covid-19 pandemic has changed perception of the value of rapid vaccine production, followed by multi-billion investments across the globe. While nanomedicines are receiving attention for enhancing stability and targeted activity of APIs, their broad availability currently suffers from the same production bottleneck as mRNA vaccines. Leon-nanodrugs, a pharma technology company, is developing a disruptive approach to unlock high-speed vaccine production.
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.