Healthcare industry

Innovative Therapies - 20/08/2020

Labor Dr. Merk is fully committed to viral therapies

Labor Dr. Merk & Kollegen is reorienting its business towards viral therapeutics. With this change of strategy, the company, which has decades of expertise in virology, wants to position itself in a timely fashion in the growing new market for advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMP). In gene and virotherapies (oncolytic viruses), tumour vaccines and CAR-T cell therapies, viruses are essential as vectors, killers of tumour cells or…

CureVac AG, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of transformative medicines based on optimized mRNA, today announced that the German Health Authority Paul-Ehrlich-Institute (PEI) and the Belgian Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (FAMHP) have approved the Phase 1 clinical trial for its vaccine program to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection. The trial will be conducted in Germany and Belgium.

Vaccine development - 02/06/2020

CureVac as a pioneer of mRNA technology – what is behind the novel COVID-19 vaccine?

All eyes are on vaccines against the coronavirus. The Tübingen-based company CureVac is doing pioneering work in this field, and intends to initiate clinical testing of its lead vaccine candidate in June. At the same time, Curevac is manufacturing the material for this vaccine candidate. But that’s not all: the novel mRNA technology also has the potential to revolutionise the treatment of cancer and metabolic diseases. What makes the method so…

CureVac AG, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of transformative medicines based on optimized mRNA, today announced positive pre-clinical results at a low dose for its lead vaccine candidate against the novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2).

Daniel Menichella, CEO of biopharmaceutical company CureVac, was today invited to the White House to discuss strategies and opportunities for the rapid development and production of a coronavirus vaccine with U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force and high-ranking representatives of pharmaceutical and biotech companies working on the outbreak’s response.

Expert interview - 16/01/2019

Cybersecurity is an important issue for the pharmaceutical industry

In an increasingly interconnected world, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors need to be aware of cybersecurity threats in manufacturing. We talked about these threats with Holger Mettler who is in charge of computer system validation and cybersecurity at Exyte (formerly M + W), a global enterprise that designs, engineers and constructs complex manufacturing facilities and buildings for the life sciences industry.

Expert interview - 17/10/2018

Biologicals are becoming increasingly important to Boehringer Ingelheim

Biopharmaceuticals are playing an increasingly important role in Boehringer Ingelheim’s development pipeline. Visible evidence of this is the company’s Biologicals Development Centre (BDC) that is currently being constructed in Boehringer Ingelheim’s Biberach plant and will bring the company’s process development under one roof by early 2020. Walter Pytlik from BIOPRO talked with Dr. Ing. Ralf Schumacher about the new centre.

Extends ongoing collaboration with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with award of two new grants. CureVac AG, a fully-integrated biopharmaceutical company pioneering the field of mRNA-based drugs, today announced the awarding of two new grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

CureVac AG, a leading clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of pioneering mRNA therapeutics, and Arcturus Therapeutics Ltd. (NASDAQ:ARCT), an RNA medicines company, today announced they have entered into a broad strategic collaboration to jointly discover, develop and commercialize novel messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics.

Company profile - 04/09/2017

Mireca: a new drug for stopping the progression of eye diseases

A team of researchers from several EU countries has developed a new drug that stops the progression of hereditary retinal diseases. The project partners founded a company called Mireca Medicines GmbH in the city of Tübingen to bring the drug to market.

Article - 08/08/2017

N2B-patch: circumventing the blood-brain barrier

There are many medications for treating central nervous system diseases. However, only a fraction of the active pharmaceutical ingredients actually reaches the site where they are needed. The reason for this is the blood-brain barrier that protects the brain and thus prevents many drugs used to treat neurological diseases from effectively penetrating the brain. Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and…

Article - 26/11/2015

Chrystelle Mavoungou: how students get to the heart of the drug discovery process

Chrystelle Mavoungou is a chemist who teaches regulatory affairs and quality in pharmaceutical production at the Biberach University of Applied Sciences’ Faculty of Biotechnology. While the public might consider these issues difficult to deal with, students and early career pharmaceutical biotechnologists quickly learn that issues like these take them right to the heart of the drug discovery process.

Press release - 03/11/2015

CureVac raises $110 Million in a private placement

CureVac, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering the field of mRNA-based technology, today announces that it has raised about $110 million (€100 million) to enable accelerated expansion of its industry-leading messenger RNA (mRNA) development platform and clinical-stage pipeline. CureVac also announces the change of its corporate legal form to a joint stock company, Aktiengesellschaft (AG).

Press release - 06/03/2015

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invests €46 million in CureVac

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and CureVac announced that the foundation has made a commitment to invest €46 million in CureVac, a leading clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company specializing in mRNA-based vaccine technologies. As part of the agreement, the foundation will also provide separate funding for several projects to develop prophylactic vaccines based on CureVac’s proprietary messenger RNA platform. In addition, CureVac’s…

Article - 02/02/2015

Rentschler Biotechnologie invests in new production plant

The Laupheim-based contract manufacturer Rentschler Biotechnologie GmbH is greatly expanding its production capacities. The company is investing €24 million in the construction of two 3,000 litre stainless steel bioreactors, which should be operational in early 2017 and will more than double the production capacities for cell culture-derived proteins. Rentschler also announced recently that it was adding a new 2,000 litre single-use bioreactor…

Article - 20/10/2014

First ever eye gene therapy close to clinical testing

There are many different retinal diseases simply because many different steps of the visual process can be affected. However, they all have one thing in common: correction of the relevant defective gene currently provides the only possibility of permanent cure. Prof. Dr. Mathias Seeliger and his group of researchers at the Institute of Ophthalmic Research at the University Hospital in Tübingen is specifically focused on the development of gene…

Article - 15/09/2014

Mesenchymal stromal cells: promising cell therapy candidates

Mesenchymal stromal cells MSC are increasingly moving into the spotlight as the beacon of hope for somatic cell therapies. The biomedical research community is currently carrying out more than 300 clinical trials to investigate their suitability for a broad range of indications. Prof. Schrezenmeier professor of transfusion medicine and medical director at the Institute for Clinical Transfusion Medicine and Immunogenetics IKT in Ulm is involved in…

Press release - 05/08/2013

greenovation Biotech GmbH – production of therapeutic proteins in moss

Plants can be genetically modified in a way that enables them to produce pharmaceutically active proteins for various indications. The small moss Physcomitrella patens is able to produce more complex molecules than bacteria. Moreover, moss is less expensive to grow and less susceptible to pathogenic contaminants than Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells. greenovation Biotech GmbH, which has its headquarters in Heilbronn and a branch in Freiburg,…

Dossier - 25/03/2013

Biotechnology goes automated

Processes that previously required pipetting analysis and production to be carried out manually are increasingly now controlled by automated systems. However this has not necessarily involved a complete reinvention of the wheel instead automation systems used in the plant construction and mechanical engineering sectors are being adapted and optimised for application in the life sciences.

Article - 11/03/2013

PHAST GmbH: firm focus on growth strategy

Since August last year, PHAST Development GmbH & Co. KG has been bringing a breath of fresh air to the old research campus of the pharmaceutical company Takeda (formerly Nycomed) in Konstanz. The pharmaceutical company, with its roots in the city of Homburg, Germany, is a specialist in innovative methods for testing the quality of medicines. Amongst other things, PHAST develops test methods that enable the optimisation of drug release. A…

Article - 11/02/2013

Quality management: burden or opportunity?

Companies are facing increasing demands. Globalisation and an increasingly quality-conscious market increase competition and pricing pressure. To remain globally competitive companies need a product and service quality that will satisfy the customer in the long term. Alexander Cansier managing director of OrgaConnect GmbH has specialised in the support of small and medium-sized companies in the life sciences pharmaceutical and medical technology…

Article - 16/04/2012

Pharma 2.0: towards paperless production

Before electronic solutions existed lorries were needed to ship new drug applications which often comprised 500000 or so pages. Thanks to IT this is no longer necessary. IT-based procedures and solutions are playing an increasing role in all areas of the pharmaceutical industry. Markus Roemer CEO of Ravensburg-based comes compliance services supports companies in implementing legal guidelines in this area. In the following interview Roemer talks…