Finding a treatment for depression that is well-tolerated and effective is difficult and time-consuming. UK scientists have now developed a blood test to predict whether common antidepressants will work in a patient.
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Funded with €9m by the French government, biomaterial player Global Bioenergies is getting closer to its goal to build the first bio-isobutene plant. IBN-One, sugar beet producer Cristal Union and cosmetics giant LOreal are also on board.
A few months ago, the EMA introduced its new accelerated access scheme, PRIME. Now, the agency has published the first few therapies that will use the chance to speed their breakthrough meds through the approval process.
French Dx play BioMérieux has acquired German Hyglos. The leader in industrial microbiological control paid around €24m for the German company and its innovative endotoxin detection method.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) means to increase first-in-man trial safety. Following the death of a volunteer in a Phase I trial earlier this year, the European Medicines Agency has started a review of the guidelines for first-in-man studies.
The Finnish Technology Academy has awarded US-American innovator Frances Arnold the 2016 Millennium Technology Prize, worth €1m. Arnold is a pioneer in the field of directed evolution.
BigDNA relaunches as Iceni Pharmaceuticals with the aim to develop repurposed and reformulated cancer therapies. First order of business: repurpose Merck Seronos cilengitide as a multiple myeloma treatment.
One of the pioneering companies developing pharmaceuticals and diagnostics based on the gut microbiome, Enterome Bioscience, has raised €14.5m in a Series C financing round. Among the investors were Seventure and Lundbeckfond as well as Nestlé.
The long awaited global review on antimicrobial resistance by economist Lord Jim ONeill has been published. It sets out an action plan to defeat superbugs with a huge awareness campaign and rapid diagnostics to be used before antibiotics are prescribed.
Bayer is deepening its involvement in CRISPR with a licensing agreement for genome editing patents. Irish partner ERS Genomics holds the rights to the CRISPR/Cas9 tech from Emmanuelle Charpentier, one of the inventors.