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The life sciences industry stepped up its pace in the last year to rapidly fill a void in the fight against COVID-19. Solis BioDyne is one of many companies that have experienced a dramatic increase in demand for its solutions during the pandemic especially for products used in COVID-19 diagnostic tests. The company knew it needed to ramp up production. And time was not on their side.

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Adeno-associated viruses (AAV) have revolutionised gene therapies as safe and effective gene shuttles. The growing demand for AAV vectors now requires an industrialised process throughout pre-clinical development that involves comprehensive monitoring from production to patient to ensure safety and efficacy of the therapeutic agent and reduce cost of goods.

Manual and automated sample processing comparison for the EchoLUTION Viral RNA/DNA Swab Kit. (©BioEcho)

During the global COVID-19 outbreak, BioEcho developed a rapid extraction protocol that reduced the isolation of SARS-CoV-2-RNA to just a few minutes. Currently, BioEcho offers a CE-marked viral RNA/DNA extraction kit and is implementing automated solutions that will allow customers to increase their diagnostics throughput.

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No matter whether you’re an end user or an OEM in biophotonics, biomedical optics, and imaging, Coherent has the laser that perfectly matches your needs and your budget.

Monika Häußler and Dr Birgit Ehrenberg, Picture: Rentschler

Innovators at Rentschler Biopharma are continuously developing new processes for biopharmaceutical production to tackle life-threatening diseases. Two of them, Dr Birgit Ehrenberg, Process Manager, and Monika Häußler, Quality Control (QC) Manager, shared insights into their latest projects and how close collaboration with chromatography experts from Tosoh Bioscience helped them develop robust, scalable, and economically viable downstream processes, as well as corresponding reliable bioanalytical methods.

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The 11th edition of the European Biotechnology Science & Industry Guide once more offers an interesting cross-section of the European biotech scene.

Mikkel Noerholm, PhD, MBA, Head of European Operations, Picture: IZB

Exosome Diagnostics develops biofluid-based molecular diagnostic tests for use in personalized medicine and collaborates with pharmaceutical companies to develop companion diagnostics (CDx).

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With many complex factors affecting a therapeutic candidate’s chances of approval, partnering with a qualified service provider can be the most effective way to produce material for clinical trials. Outsourcing allows you to delay critical capacity decisions until the fate of your molecule is more certain but, how do you ensure this approach results in a successful process that’s delivered within your target timeline?

Picture: www.l-r@kaelte.de

The current debates regarding vaccine production and logistics have also made it clear even to the layman: Pharmaceutical production depends on cold. Temperatures below -80?°C are just as common as the requirement to freeze precursors such as blood plasma within a specified time period. Refrigeration specialists with pharmaceutical know-how are in demand for these challenging tasks.

The EchoLUTION Viral RNA/DNA Swab 96 Kit workflow /©picture: Bioecho

Although innovative biotechnologies are developed continuously, the method of nucleic acid extraction stayed unchanged for several decades. The classical bind-wash-elute approach seemed sufficient, but the COVID-19 pandemic uncovered the need for a new technique to be able to process multiple samples fast and in parallel. BioEcho developed a completely new technology, which simplifies and speeds up the process of RNA extraction dramatically.