Swiss biotech Adaptyv has raised a $40 million (€34.5 million) Series A to expand its automated protein-testing labs, betting that wet-lab capacity will become a critical bottleneck as AI models generate ever more biological designs.
NovartisNovartis has paused eight clinical trials of its CD19 CAR-T therapy rap-cel after three patients died from a severe immune reaction. The studies are evaluating the therapy in autoimmune and neurological diseases including lupus, systemic sclerosis, myositis and multiple sclerosis. The move highlights the safety challenges of taking CAR-T beyond oncology into chronic immune-mediated diseases.
Last weekend, from August 28 to 31, the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) held its annual congress in Munich. For the biotech industry, ESC 2026 delivered a mixed bag: a cardiac myosin inhibitor opening a patient population with no approved therapies, long-term validation for its main competitor, a gene silencer stumbling in ATTR-CM countered by an siRNA triumph in severe hypertriglyceridemia, and GLP-1 drugs quietly earning a place in the new heart failure guidelines. Here are the five stories that mattered most.
KJ Muldoon’s survival was not just a medical breakthrough. It was a glimpse of a new category of medicine, in which a genetic error can be corrected with the precision of an operation rather than developed as a conventional drug. Can Europe build the system that turns one extraordinary rescue into a repeatable model?
BioNTech and Genentech have terminated a Phase 2 trial of their personalized mRNA cancer vaccine autogene cevumeran in colorectal cancer after more deaths occurred in the vaccine arm than among patients under observation. The setback comes just days after rival Moderna scored the first Phase 3 success for an individualized mRNA cancer therapy — albeit in combination with a checkpoint inhibitor.
German biotech Heidelberg Pharma and China-based Huadong Medicine are drawing ever closer: What began as a licensing partnership has developed into an alliance spanning capital investment, joint ADC development and clinical research. Now, up to six new targets are being added, making the partnership increasingly strategic.
Dutch startup Revealis Biotherapeutics has launched to develop a new generation of cancer vaccines targeting tumor cells that have become difficult for T cells to recognize, building on an academic program that has already reached patients.
French biotech Osivax and South Korea-based GC Biopharma have partnered to develop a seasonal influenza vaccine combining Osivax’s broad-spectrum OVX836 candidate with GC Biopharma’s marketed GC FLU vaccine.
UK-based Redx Pharma has closed a $36 million (€31 million) Series A financing round to support a Phase 2 trial of its Crohn’s disease drug candidate.
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) is providing Egyptian biopharmaceutical company Minapharm with up to $16.5 million (€14 million) to advance another vaccine candidate against Bundibugyo Ebola virus into clinical development. The candidate was developed by Minapharm’s Berlin-based subsidiary ProBioGen using its proprietary MVA-CR19 platform. A Phase I trial is planned in Africa, with the broader aim of helping the continent build the capacity to respond rapidly to emerging outbreaks.