2 July 2020 From the race to the COVID-19 cure to the new manufacturing technologies that could be a game changer for stem cell therapies. With COVID-19 still a significant feature in the drug discovery landscape, this issue looks at the race to finding a cure – from… Read More
1 July 2020 Image: Micheile Henderson Symbiosis Pharmaceutical Services has secured £1million of finance from Allied Irish Bank (GB) to support its 2020 growth strategy. Symbiosis provides niche, sterile manufacturing services to global biotechnology and pharmaceutical company clients that are developing novel drug therapies and vaccines for use… Read More
Image: CDC A group of Lithuanian and Kurdish scientists have raised a hypothesis that the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine could protect children from COVID-19. The hypothesis is based on the discovered sequence similarity of the 30 amino acid residues between glycoproteins of SARS-CoV-2, measles and rubella… Read More
30 June 2020 Image: Lucas Vasques PharmEnable, has closed a £1.8 million seed financing to support its transition into a drug development company. The Cambridge, UK-based drug discovery company uses advanced medicinal chemistry and AI-enabled approaches to design the next generation of highly complex and specific drug candidate… Read More
30 June 2020 Image: Glen Carrie In lab tests, virus-like DNA structures coated with viral proteins provoke a strong immune response in human B cells, by Ann Trafton, MIT News Office By folding DNA into a virus-like structure, MIT researchers have designed HIV-like particles that provoke a strong immune… Read More
29 June 2020 Image: Clay Banks Evotec, Samsara BioCapital, KCK have launched Autobahn Labs, a novel virtual incubator partnering with top academic and research institutions to catalyse early-stage drug discovery and development. Autobahn Labs also announced a first-in-kind strategic collaboration with UCLA Technology Development Group to identify and… Read More
29 June 2020 Image: Mark Fletcher-Brown The AMR Centre has combined forces to attract investment to combat the global threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) resulting in a successful bid for a £114 million project supported by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) The funding was secured by a North… Read More
26 June 2020 Image: National Cancer Institute A research team led by the University of Kent and Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, has solved an almost 40-year old mystery in leukaemia therapy and the drug nelarabine. Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is the most common cancer in children. Read More
26 June 2020 Image: Conor Samuel A Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine-led consortium has received an £18.6 million grant from the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Strength in Places Fund (SIPF) to deliver a major project to tackle infectious diseases, including COVID-19. The funding award recognises Liverpool City… Read More
25 June 2020 Metabolon and DNA Genotek have teamed up to create OMNImet-GUT, said to be the first device for in-home collection and ambient-temperature storage and shipping of faecal samples for metabolomics, to the research market. “For years, our customers from across biopharma, academia and… Read More
25 June 2020 Image: Chris Liverani CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society specialising in scientific information solutions, and the Pistoia Alliance, a global, not-for-profit organisation that works to lower barriers to innovation in life sciences R&D, have signed an agreement… Read More
25 June 2020 Teknova has appointed Stephen Gunstream as chief executive officer. Gunstream has nearly 20 years of experience in the life sciences industry, including positions as Vice President and General Manager for the research and clinical business at BD Biosciences and Chief Commercial Officer at Integrated DNA Technologies. Read More
25 June 2020 Dotmatics has agreed to acquire BioBright, an expert in automating the flow of data from laboratory instruments to a secure cloud. BioBright’s solutions enable scientists to automate the collection of data from in-house and externally networked sources, and then standardise and analyse crucial experimental data… Read More
Scientists from AI precision medicine company, PrecisionLife, have found 68 genes associated with risk of developing severe COVID-19 by using its proprietary AI-enabled precision medicine platform to analyse the genomes of 929 patients from the UK Biobank who had a severe response to SARS-CoV-2. Prior to an effective… Read More
24 June 2020 Image: Sincerely Media Applied Photophysics (APP) and Fluorescence Innovations (FI) have entered into a joint venture agreement to develop and produce protein stability systems for leading researchers and industries around the globe. The two firms said they will be equal partners in the new initiative. Read More
Symbiosis Pharmaceutical Services has signed a supply agreement with AstraZeneca for sterile manufacture of the COVID-19 recombinant adenovirus vaccine known as AZD1222 for AstraZeneca sponsored clinical trials. Under the agreement, Symbiosis will provide AstraZeneca fast-track access to sterile vaccine drug product manufacturing capacity for clinical trial… Read More
