Antibiotic resistance is widespread. Its global human and economic burden is tremendous and constantly increasing. Despite the recognised and growing need for new antibiotics, most large pharmaceutical companies today have dropped antibacterial drug discovery programmes.
European Biotechnology Network had the good fortune to moderate the 8th Berlin Conference on IP in Life Science, which this year had a focus on natural products. That will be interesting, I thought to myself, thinking about the world of complex structures and challenging development pathways. Interesting soon paled into insignificance as I fell headlong into the tiger trap that is the Nagoya Protocol, coming soon folks to a country near you.
Modern biotechnology has already helped many patients and we need to continue research and development because many diseases cannot be cured yet. However, inappropriate use of technology has serious side effects for patients and society. That is why strict rules if possible at cross-national level are necessary.
During the Swiss Biotech Day in Zurich, the Swiss Biotech Report 2014 highlighted the most important innovation drivers in the countrys industry and summarised the sectors most relevant topics.
You would have to be blind, deaf and living in a hole for the last twenty years to not know that Europe struggles with the whole GMO thing.
Immune therapies have rapidly gained the attention of the medical community as a new hope for cancer treatment. Arguably, the intersection of immunology and oncology represents one of the most promising approaches, which may have a significant impact for patients with cancer today.
We have a new set of European Commissioners, and I thought that in this issue, it would be very nice to have a look at one of them through the lens of biotechnology. Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation Carlos Moedas is our man, and a quick look at his bio shows that he combines origins in engineering with a career in banking and real estate. You may interpret that as you will in terms of usefulness to the world of science.
In the last few years, the regulatory landscape overseeing manufacturing process validation has faced major overhauls in two ICH (International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use) regions.
This summer saw the first deadline for the new SME Instrument, and the evaluation feedback from the European Commission could be a wake-up call for small companies across Europe.
External innovation is one of the pharmaceutical industrys solutions for overcoming patent cliffs and gaps in innovation. Its based on the insight that the majority of innovations in this sector do not have their origin in Big Pharma, but come from academia and small biotech companies.