A team of Scots, Belgian and Spanish researchers claim they have found a target to prevent failure of liver regeneration following intoxination or acute injury. 

Dr. Klaus Moosmeyer. Picture © Siemens AG, Munich/Berlin

Novartis announced today the appointment of Dr Klaus Moosmayer as Chief Ethics, Risk and Compliance Officer. He will report to Vas Narasimhan, M.D., CEO of Novartis and  become a member of the Executive Committee of Novartis (ECN). Dr. Moosmayer will join Novartis on December 1, 2018 and will be based in Basel, Switzerland. He succeeds Shannon Thyme Klinger who was recently appointed Group General Counsel.

London-headquartered gene therapy Orchard Therapeutics has closed a US-$150m series C financing round to push MAAs and BLAs of three late-stage gene therapies by 2021.

Dr Tristan Vaughan. Picture: Sphere Fluidics

Sphere Fluidics, a company providing single cell analysis systems underpinned by its patented picodroplet technology, announced today that Tris Vaughan, PhD FRSB has joined its scientific advisory board (SAB).

When DDR fails, the tumour cell dies. © Artios Pharma Ltd.

Life Sciences Partners and Andera Partners together with Pfizer Ventures and Novartis Venture Fund have put €85m into the cancer drug development company Artios Pharma Ltd.

Reduced myelination (right) in rats with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease 1A vs healthy rats (left). © umg/mpgem

German neurogenetics at the Max-Planck-Institute for Experimental Medicine have cured the rare incurable hereditary Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease by simply supplementing the food of mice carrying the disease-causing duplication of the PMP22 gene with lecithin. The phospholipid supplementation enabled Schwann cells deficient in lipid synthesis to restore the insulating myelin sheet around peripheral neurons which is needed to speed up neuronal transmission.

Pictur: Biological Industries

Biological Industries (BI) develops, manufactures, packs, and supplies cell culture products for academic research, diagnostic labs, hospitals, and the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries. BI specialises in serum-free, xeno-free, animal component-free media, as well as contract manufacturing services that range from raw material supply, through labeling and packaging, to ready-to-market product.

Mice deficient in Thy-1 (right) displayed decreased bone formation and mineralised bone matrix (black) in the tibia compared to wild-type mice (left). © A.-K. Picke et al., Science Translational Medicine (2018)

German researchers have found a molecular switch that determines whether mesenchymal fibroblasts differentiate into fat- or bone-forming cells opening the avenue to modulation of the processes.

Tecentriq targeting PD-L1, © Roche

Researchers at Roche’s US arms Genentech and Foundation Medicine Inc. (FMI) presented a liquid biopsy test that can be used to identify NSCLC patients who respond to Roche’s PD-L1 blocker Tecentriq earlier than to FMI’s tissue based tumour mutation burden (TMB) assay.

Headquarters of Boehringer Ingelheim. © Boehringer Ingelheim

German pharma company and CDMO Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) steps into the lucrative field of gene therapy. Together with the UK Cystic Fibrosis Gene Therapy Consortium (GTC), BI aims at developing replacement therapies compensating for mutations that lead to cystic fibrosis.