Over the past few years, Belgium’s argenx has become a biotech force to be reckoned with, driven by the success of its autoimmune drug Vyvgart (efgartigimod alfa) in diseases such as generalised myasthenia gravis (gMG) and chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP). We caught up with CEO Karen Massey to discuss how she plans to build on this success after joining argenx in March 2023 and taking up the role of CEO at the start of this year.
Swiss biotech company Anaveon has appointed a new Chief Executive Officer. As the company announced in March, experienced biopharma executive Thaminda Ramanayake will take over the leadership of the Basel-based firm.
Novartis AG has reported a clinical milestone in the treatment of Sjögren’s syndrome, with its BAFF receptor blocker Ianalumab (VAY736) becoming the first investigational therapy to demonstrate a statistically significant reduction in disease activity in pivotal Phase III trials, as measured by the ESSDAI score.
Dutch inflammation specialist Citryll BV has raised €85m to push clininal testing of its lead candidate, CIT-013, a bifunctional antibody that prevents the release of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) from neutrophil granulocytes into the cytoplasm, thus blocking inflammatory and autoimmune diseases at its very roots.
A bacterium of the gut microbiome seems to spark an autoimmune disease in the kidneys by leaking antigens that trigger the immune system.
Mysthera Therapeutics AG has launched in Basel with $3.5m in seed funding from founding investor Forty51 Ventures. The capital will be used to advance its preclinical portfolio in a variety of autoimmune indications. The focus is on pan-PIM kinase inhibitors that uniquely modulate multilineage immune cell functions.
Italian researchers have successfully ameliorated several IL-1-based autoimmune disorders by gene therapy into transplantable hematopoietic stem cells of mice.
Anaveon
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Volker Brinkmann / Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology