The AI Circular Economy Conference 2026, organised by nova-Institute, brought together 116 participants from 15 countries in Cologne and online to explore the transformation of the chemical and materials industry supported and accelerated by artificial intelligence.
London-based Ternary Therapeutics has raised a €4.1 million seed round to expand its platform for designing molecular glue drugs, with Paris-based VC daphni leading the financing alongside Pace Ventures, i&i Biotech Fund and Future Planet Capital.
French AI biotech Owkin has spun out its diagnostics division as a new company, Waiv, raising $33 million in financing led by OTB Ventures and Alpha Intelligence Capital to scale AI-powered precision testing.
As a co-investor in the USD 25 million Series B round, Beiersdorf AG is signalling that artificial intelligence is becoming strategically important for skin research. The Hamburg-based group is participating through its venture unit in the AI biotech Turbine, founded in Budapest and now also headquartered in London.
Oxford-based Brainomix has added £4.8 million (approximately $6.5m/€5.5m) to its Series C financing, bringing the total round to £18.8 million ($25.4m/€21.5m) and providing fresh capital to accelerate the US rollout of its AI-powered imaging platforms for stroke and lung fibrosis.
Italy’s Angelini Pharma has signed a multi-year research collaboration and licensing agreement with Massachusetts-based Quiver Bioscience to discover new treatments for genetic epilepsies, including developmental and epileptic encephalopathies (DEEs). Under the agreement, Quiver could receive up to $120 million in milestone payments plus royalties if Angelini advances drug targets emerging from the collaboration. Financial terms for the upfront payment were not disclosed. Angelini will also receive exclusive access to data generated during the research term.
Chemify has struck a deal with Zeon, securing investment from the company’s venture capital wing and signing up to make novel compounds and materials for its new partner.
PharosAI, a U.K. cancer research consortium bringing together King’s College London, Queen Mary University of London, Guy’s and St Thomas’ National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust and Barts Health NHS Trust, has partnered with 10x Genomics to generate large-scale multimodal cancer datasets from archived NHS tumor samples using 10x’s Xenium spatial biology platform.
Cambridge-based techbio company Qureight Ltd has appointed Rebecca Simmons as its new Chief Operating Officer in January.
A month after China publicly revealed its bioeconomy priorities under its 15th Five Year Plan, the European Commission released an updated EU Bioeconomy Strategy — and the contrast could hardly be sharper. While China bets on a bold mix of AI, bioengineering and synthetic biology to replace fossil based industrial products with recombinant and cell free systems, the EU remains anchored in a more traditional vision focused on the valorisation of agricultural output and industrial waste. By contrast, the UK has taken a more modern approach, heavily investing in engineering biology — the use of reprogrammed microorganisms to produce industrial goods — as a key pillar of its biotech and bioeconomy strategy.
Beiersdorf
Brainomix
Qureight Ltd
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