Plant-based

World pioneer in cannabis research, Professor Raphael Mechoulam, has died in Israel at the age of 92. A professor in the Hebrew University School of Pharmacy, Mechoulam began his cannabinoid experiments in the 1960s in Israel. His research team was the first to isolate delta9-THC (THC), the psychoactive component of cannabis, which affects the brain, […]

Michael Sassano, CEO at SOMAÍ Pharmaceuticals looks at what’s needed throughout Europe to help increase access to medicinal cannabis and the current state of pharmaceutical research in this area. The use of medicinal cannabis across much of the world is still in its infancy. Despite claims of a whole host of benefits, the clinical studies […]

2022 was a complicated year. Global challenges like the Ukraine war and the continued impact of Covid-19 have been felt across the world. And yet it was also a year of incredible innovation in drug discovery, with the potential of new biotechnology beginning to be revealed. Our top 10 most popular online articles for 2022 […]

Evonik has launched a non-animal-derived squalene suitable for vaccines and other pharmaceutical applications. PhytoSquene is the first known amaranth oil-derived squalene on the market for use in adjuvants in parenteral dosage forms. It is an alternative to animal-derived squalene, which for pharmaceutical applications is typically sourced from shark liver oil.  “It is alarming that biodiversity […]

When he was 17 years old, Joe Landolina created a revolutionary gel. Now, he is 29 years old and co-founder and CEO of Cresilon, his homegrown Brooklyn-based biotech company that recently submitted the gel for FDA 510(k) clearance for human use and raised $38.5 million in Series A3 financing last year. DDW’s Megan Thomas caught […]

Results from the Phase III placebo-controlled efficacy study of Medicago’s plant-based Covid-19 vaccine candidate in combination with GlaxoSmithKline’s pandemic adjuvant have shown positive results. Vaccine efficacy was demonstrated in an environment dominated by SARS-CoV-2 variants, unlike most published Phase III efficacy trials for currently licensed Covid-19 vaccines that were conducted when only the ancestral virus […]