27 July 2020 Image: CDC GlaxoSmithKline and CureVac are collaborating for the research, development, manufacturing and commercialisation of up to five mRNA-based vaccines and monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) targeting infectious disease pathogens. The collaboration complements GSK’s existing mRNA capabilities with CureVac’s integrated mRNA platform. mRNA (messenger RNA) technology is… Read More
Aggressive cancers could be treated with immunotherapies that direct the immune system to kill cancer cells with specific drug resistance-causing mutations, a major new study suggests. Drug resistance mutations which restore activity of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes as a way of avoiding the effects of drug treatment… Read More
The company has launched two online, free-to-access Covid-19 Data Dashboards to aid the global scientific community accelerate the discovery of antivirals and vaccines. The informatics tools are set to help scientists access, aggregate and analyse drug compound and clinical trial data and are powered by PerkinElmer’s data analytics… Read More
23 July 2020 Image: National Cancer Institute Adoptive cell transfer immunotherapy is one of the most promising new treatments for people with hard-to-treat cancers. However, the process is complex and needs fine-tuning in order to develop more treatment strategies that will work for more people. In a new… Read More
21 July 2020 Image: Henry Lai AbCellera has entered into an agreement with Alloy Therapeutics to use the ATX-Gx humanised mice platform to enable best-in-class in vivo human antibody discovery for its partner programs. Under the terms of the agreement, AbCellera will offer its biotech and pharma partners… Read More
21 July 2020 Image: Anshu A Thanks to seed financing from Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF) and Evotec, Quantro Therapeutics will generate a drug discovery pipeline, aiming to transform the precision and scope of cell-based compound screens. With the introduction of ‘Transcriptional Fingerprinting’ to drug discovery, Quantro intends… Read More
A team of scientists at Oxford University’s Jenner Institute and Oxford Vaccine Group has taken the next step towards the discovery of a safe, effective and accessible vaccine against coronavirus. The results of the Phase I/II trial published today in the scientific journal, The Lancet, indicate no early safety… Read More
20 July 2020 Image: Toa Heftiba Sphere Fluidics and Heriot-Watt University have been awarded a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) grant from Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency. The grant will facilitate the development of novel droplet generator instrumentation, which will be used to expand Sphere Fluidics’ portfolio of… Read More
Millions of people could be vaccinated against coronavirus as the UK secures early access to 90 million doses of promising Covid-19 vaccine candidates. The UK government has agreed significant partnerships with leading pharmaceutical and vaccine companies BioNTech/Pfizer and Valneva that are developing new vaccines to protect people against… Read More
The next critical phase for The University of Queensland’s (UQ) COVID-19 vaccine is underway, with the research effort moving out of the lab and into human trials. Healthy adult volunteers have received the first dose of the vaccine at the Brisbane clinic of phase 1 clinical trials specialist,… Read More
According to the Humane Society International/UK (HSI/UK), Home Office statistics reveal that the number of animals in British laboratories has stayed broadly the same almost a decade after the government pledged to reduce animal use. It says that UK laboratories completed a total of 3.4 million procedures in… Read More
Cancer Research UK is planning to become a leaner, more focused organisation following the impact of COVID-19 on its fundraising income. The charity is making difficult decisions to reduce how much it spends on beating cancer, its operations and the number of staff following… Read More
15 July 2020 This is the company’s second site in the APAC region, headed by Masahiro Matsushita. The expansion follows long-standing partnerships with Japanese life science distributors. The move was motivated, in part, by growing biotech and healthcare markets in Japan. The increasing importance of the Japanese life… Read More
Scientists in academic centres and companies around the world desperately search for novel therapeutics and vaccines to treat and prevent COVID-19. However, with lockdowns and limited access to laboratories, researchers are being forced to work from home, putting research continuity at risk. To help scientists continue their R&D,… Read More
14 July 2020 Image: Denys Nevozhai Merck has opened its M Lab Collaboration Centre in Shanghai, the largest of the company’s nine centres worldwide. “With the booming pharmaceutical industry in Asia and greater emphasis on novel drug therapies, we see an increase in R&D on leading-edge treatments including… Read More
Antibodies derived from llamas have been shown to neutralise the SARS-CoV-2 virus in lab tests, UK researchers have found. The team involves researchers from the Rosalind Franklin Institute, Oxford University, Diamond Light Source and Public Health England. They hope the antibodies – known as nanobodies due to their… Read More
