The European Parliament has voted to add €36.5bn to the budget of Horizon Europe (€94.1bn, in 2018 prices) proposed by the European Commission to foster research and innovation.

Cancer immunotherapies are often associated with severe cytokine release syndrome (CRS) that can be managed with IL-6R-blockers. US oncologists now report that an FDA-approved hypertension drug did the same job as Roche’s anti-IL-6R blocker tocolizumab.

Immuncheckpoint specialist Oxford BioTherapeutics has licenced the right to develop five bispecific antibodies for combination therapies using Wuxi Biologics’ WuXiBody platform.

An analysis of health records of the whole Scottish population aged ?30 years revealed that people with diabetes have an increased risk for heart failure.

British drugmaker AstraZeneca (AZ) has missed another opportunity to secure a share in the lucrative immunoncology market: a Phase III trial combining durvalumab with tremelimumab missed the survival endpoint.

LSP and Sofinnova Ventures co-led the financing of the Amsterdam-based gene therapy specialist  XyloCor Therapeutics.

For two days, Lille was the place to be for partnering in early stage innovation. On December 5th, Europe’s leading tech transfer event BioFIT wrapped up, recording a record number of participants.

Uncommon mutations in three genes in estrogen receptor positive breast cancer have a negative impact on disease prognosis reports a team of British and Australian researchers in Nature Communications. 


GlaxoSmithKline said it will pay $75 per share in cash to take over US oncology player Tesaro, whose FDA-approved DNA repair blocker nirparib (Zejula) made only US$166m in sales in Q1-3/2018.

Janssen affiliate Cilag GmbH International has licenced argenx’ anti-CD70 antibody cusatuzumab (ARGX-110) for US$300m upfront.