Kathryn J. Gregory

Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst (SBC) has announced that Dr. Sally Ann Forsyth is set to join the company as CEO in March 2018.

Langerhans islet within the pancreas.
© iNOVA4Health

Belgian reMYND N.V. has out licenced worldwide commercialisation rights for its small molecule programme ReS39 in diabetes to Novo Nordisk A/S. The drug impedes death of insulin-producing beta cells by preventing the formation of cytotoxic islet amyloid polypeptide (IAPP) aggregates.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infected Human Dendritic Cells. Mtb appear as isolated or grouped red-purple stained rods. Kinyoun staining. Optical mycrocoscopy 20x. © Roberto Nisini/Sci Transl Med. (stm.sciencemag.org)

A new, non-invasive tuberculosis urine test prevents common disadvantages of the standard tuberculin skin test: Measuring lipoarabinomannan glycan from M. tuberculosis, it detects the active disease in early stage and does not interfere with co-infections or weakened immune system.

Life sciences investment group LSP has launched the largest fund in Europe dedicated to late-stage medical technology assets, including diagnostics and digital health.

Frederic Rousseau and Joost Schymkowitz, ©VIB-Ine Dehandschutter

Belgian start-up company Aelin Therapeutics NV secured the funds to push development of candidate drugs arising from its Pept-in protein knockdown platform, which harnesses protein aggregation to induce functional knockdown of target proteins.

agenX

Dutch llama antibody specialist ArgenX met the safety endpoint in a Phase II trial with ARGX 113 (efgartigimod), a first-in-class antibody that lowers pathogenic levels of IgG, in patients with the autoimmune disease myasthenia gravis.

sphingotest® immunoassay principle. 
© sphingotec GmbH

In vitro diagnostics leader Ortho Clinical Diagnostics (Raritan, US) expands his assay portfolio with Sphingotec’s first-in-class biomarker test that predicts residual edema and re-hospitalization in patients with congestive heart failure.

Picture: Wikimedia Commons/ James St. John

The renewable energy sector is ramping up in a major way, but a host of infrastructure issues still need to be solved. One is that supply at times now outstrips demand, but there’s no way to store excess power. Turning it into an easy-to-store, energy-rich source like methane could solve the problem. A pivotal aspect of ‘power-to-gas’ technology harnesses some tiny helpers usually found in some of the most extreme regions on the planet. 

French based Advicenne has raised a €27m IPO on Euronext Paris, to develop paediatric-friendly therapeutics for the treatment of orphan renal and neurological diseases.

Action of oxytocin and vasopressin in the human brain. © Marcos Otero García_University of Valencia

A European-Australian team of researchers has created a synthetic version of oxytocin that does not show the off-target effects mediated by its chemical analogon vasopressin.