Roche tower at Basel headquarters. ©123rf.com/ Pavel Dudek

Swiss pharma giant Roche has complemented its drug pipeline in the lucrative hemophilia A market by taking over hemophilia A gene therapy developer Spark Therapeutics for US$4.3bn.

© 123rf.com/Julia Sudnitskaya

Sodium chloride can promote immune responses that have been linked to atopic dermatitis. Researchers have now unraveled the mechanistic details between salt intake and activation of T cells.

© Calypso Biotech BV

Dutch autoimmunity specialist Calypso Biotech BV has raised €20m in a Series A financing co-led by Gilde Healthcare and Inkef Capital and co-financed by Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc. (JJDC), and the company’s seed investor M Ventures.

© 123rf_ Christoph Burgstedt

Evotec AG and the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) have joined platforms in order to find novel resistance-breaking antibiotics against Gram-negative bugs.

Human heart muscle cells derived from triple-engineered stem cells that are invisible to the immune system. The red is troponin, a protein that participates in cardiac muscle contraction. The blue is the cell's nucleus. Researchers hope cells like these will eventually be used to treat heart failure. © USCF/ Xiaomeng Hu.

Researchers for the first time have found a way to prevent immune rejection of allogenic iPSC-derived cell and tissue transplants. 

Picture: DHL/Accenture

It‘s only been nine years since the first blockchain technology applications in finance were introduced. Big players are now working to use distributed computing to protect pharma logistics from counterfeit drugs. Unlike current Internet-based solutions, the decentralised blockchain network is immune to manipulation or hacks, as transactions can be verified, recorded, and coordinated autonomously without third-party involvement.

Patrice Grand. Picture: Merck

Mundipharma today announced the appointment of Patrice Grand to the position of European Director of Corporate Communications.

© 123rf.com/sangoiri

Swiss newco Arvelle Therapeutics has baged a $180m (€159.1m) series A financing led by LSP. The company licenced the anti-epileptic candidate cenobamate (YKP3089) for $100m (€88.4m) upfront from SK Biopharmaceuticals.

Plastics production from 1950 to 2017. © nova-institute

The market for bio-based building blocks and polymers showed moderate growth to 7.5 million tonnes in 2018 and will grow with a CGAR of 4% by 2023 reports German nova-Institute. 

Healthy (left) and type 1 diabetes (right) islet of Langerhans in the pancreas. ©  123rf.com/designua

Swiss researchers have demonstrated a way to cure type I diabetes without cell transplantation. In model mice the reprogrammed non-islet cells from human pancreas