Business

Clinical biotechnology company Storm Therapeutics has successfully completed a USD $30 million Series B financing round.  The investment allows the company to focus on discovering and developing novel small molecule therapies targeting RNA modifying enzymes (RMEs) for oncology and other diseases.  The financing was co-led by existing investors M Ventures, Pfizer Ventures, Taiho Ventures LLC, […]

PrecisionLife and Ono Pharmaceutical have agreed a multi-target discovery and validation partnership.   The R&D collaboration will leverage PrecisionLife’s combinatorial analytics-generated insights to identify novel therapeutic targets and patient stratification biomarkers in central nervous system (CNS) disorders for development by Ono.  PrecisionLife analyses multi-modal datasets including genomic, clinical, and epidemiological data to accurately stratify patients and […]

Optibrium, a developer of software and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for drug discovery, recently announced the promotion of Dr Tamsin Mansley to President of its new subsidiary to lead its US-based team and business operations. DDW’s Megan Thomas spoke with Dr Mansley to learn more about what she considers the role of AI in drug […]

Thousands of US lawsuits claiming that the heartburn drug Zantac caused cancer have been dismissed on the basis that they are not backed by sound science.  The ruling against around 50,000 claims was made by US District Judge Robin Rosenberg in West Palm Beach, Florida. The manufacturers have repeatedly asserted that Zantac does not cause […]

By Dr Natalia Dadivanyan, Segment Marketing Manager, Malvern Panalytical  Small molecules can face big challenges  Despite the emergence of, and excitement around, advanced therapeutic modalities, traditional small molecule pharmaceuticals still occupy a significant and steadily growing share of the market. A recent report indicated the current market size to be ~$166 billion, and a 5% compound […]

Bio-chromatography company Sartorius BIA Separations (BIA) and exosomes medicines company Exopharm have signed a Material Transfer Agreement and associated collaborative programme.  The partnership aims to combine Exopharm’s LEAP technology together with BIA’s CIM (Convective Interaction Media) monolith chromatography for improved large-scale therapeutic exosome production and commercialisation.  The companies hope to meet the demand for a […]

There have been a number of high-level career moves within the industry in the last couple of weeks. In this update, we provide a round-up of the latest senior appointments and promotions. Nick Maishman, ViroCell Biologics Nick Maishman has joined contract development and manufacturing organisation ViroCell as Chief Operating Officer. The appointment follows Susan B […]

Leica Microsystems and Cell Signaling Technology (CST) have agreed a partnership to validate CST antibodies on the Cell DIVE multiplexed imaging solution.  As an open multiplexing system, Cell DIVE allows researchers to design custom antibody biomarker panels.  James O’Brien, Vice President Life Sciences at Leica Microsystems, said: “Instead of spending time validating antibodies, the pre-validated […]

Magnitude Biosciences has closed a fourth round of investment to accelerate the scaling of its business providing C. elegans research services.   A total investment of £500,000 will be made by longstanding investors the North East (ERDF) Innovation Fund Limited Partnership, supported by the European Regional Development Fund and managed by Northstar Ventures, and Saker Capital.   […]

Merck has invested more than €290 million in its biosafety testing capacity at Rockville, Maryland, in the US.   The company says the investment will significantly increase the company’s ability to conduct biosafety testing and analytical development services, critical to the drug development and commercialisation process.  “These significant investments in Rockville and other sites across our […]