© Clariant

Swiss fine chemicals specialist Clariant has hammered out a R&D pact with ExxonMobil and Renewable Energy Group (REG) Inc to combine technologies in order of producing biodiesel from cellulose
 

Pierre Meulien, IMI Executive Director and ex-Genomics Canada President

The Innovative Medicines Initiative II has earmarked €80m for pre-competetive research improving the pharmaceutical industry’s productivity.

Superbug Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).
© 123rf.com/royaltystockphoto

Novo Holdings has invested €18m from its €135m REPAIR Impact Fund into four companies.
 

123rf.com_ Xavier Gallego Morell

Boehringer Ingelheim has expanded its 2014 R&D collaboration with the BioMed X Innovation Center (Heidelberg, Germany) to find new treatment approaches for early intervention of psychiatric diseases.

Scanning electron microscope image showing macrophage adhesion to a monolayer of myofibroblasts. © M. Lodyga et al., Science Signaling (2018)

Canadian and Finnish researchers have demonstrated that long immune cell contact to lung tissue turns tissue repair into fibrosis. 

© Valneva SE

French vaccine specialist Valneva SE has inked a supply contract with the US Department of Defense for IXIARO its Japanese encephalitis (JE). 

The development of gasification technology takes place in VTT's Bioruukki piloting centre in Espoo, Finland. © VTT

Researchers at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd have presented a new gasification-based technique to turn forest industry byproducts into transport fuels and chemicals.

© 123rf.com/Jovanche Vitanovski

German researchers have modeled when cellular alterations inevitably lead to the development of cancer. The transition is tissue-specific and needs only a few cells.

Pseudocoloured cluster of circulating tumour cells (CTCs), isolated from the blood of a patient with breast cancer, trapped on a microfluidic device. © M Oeggerli / Micronaut 2018, supported by Pathology-, C-CINA / Biozentrum-, and I Krol, and N Aceto, Faculty of Medicine-, University Hospital and University Basel.

A team of Swiss researchers has identified Na+/K+-ATPase blockers as candidate drugs capable to prevent formation of metastases. In blood, the repurposed drugs identified in a screening dissociated clusters of circulating tumour cells (CTCs), forerunners of metastases.

© Audivisual Services of the EC

In summer the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that crops created by biological mutagenesis techniques fall under EU GMO legislation. Germany’s government and the European Parliament see no need to take action.