Healthcare industry

Plastic products can be found everywhere in daily life, soft plastic in particular often being used for packaging or children's toys. These often contain so-called plasticizers which ensure that the material remains flexible. Because plasticizers are not bonded permanently to the plastic, they can escape from the material, meaning they can be absorbed by humans.

EMBL scientists pave the way for reducing the harmful side effects antibiotics have on gut bacteria. Antibiotics help us to treat bacterial infections and save millions of lives each year. But they can also harm the helpful microbes residing in our gut, weakening one of our body’s first lines of defence against pathogens and compromising the multiple beneficial effects our microbiota has for our health.

Phytopharmaceuticals - 14/09/2020

Medicinal cannabis to be grown in Germany

Anyone who thinks hemp is just an inconspicuous plant, whose ingredients can be used, at best, as an intoxicant, can quickly be proven wrong. Besides being used as a valuable raw material for textiles and building materials, the plant has great potential as a medicinal drug. The CANNABIS-NET network, coordinated by the University of Hohenheim, has been set up to establish the basis for producing medicinal hemp in Germany.

Asthma is the most common chronic disease in children. One in ten children suffer from bronchial restriction and produce elevated amounts of lung mucus. On 02.05.2017 is "World Asthma Day" – the BIOPRO provides information about this topic.

Article - 31/03/2017

Bosch to enter the medical technology sector – start-up culture meets proven expertise

Many of us have known the Bosch Group mainly as a technology company that is active in the automotive sector. Now, the multinational company is opening up a whole new field of business and is entering the medical technology market with a new subsidiary. Bosch Healthcare Solutions GmbH, which is headquartered in the city of Waiblingen, has developed an innovative breath analysis device that allows asthmatics to measure the severity of airway…

Article - 15/09/2014

Gene therapies for pulmonary disease are close to final development

Gene therapy currently offers the only chance of curing genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis and beta thalassaemia. Gene therapy is the replacement or correction of a mutated gene with DNA that encodes a functional gene. Intensive research has been going on in this field for many years however only a handful gene therapies are available at this point in time. Dr. Michael Kormann junior professor at the Childrens Hospital at the University of…

Article - 30/06/2014

The German National Cohort: collecting data for a healthier future

A large-scale long-term cohort study will be carried out to explain the causes of widespread diseases, in particular cancer, coronary heart disease, stroke and diabetes, and to identify the risk factors that lead to or favour the development of a certain disease. The principal objective of the German National Cohort (GNC) is to create the conditions that enable the development of new strategies for the prevention, risk assessment and early…

Article - 10/02/2014

HOT Screen GmbH - models for studying diseases

HOT Screen GmbH from Reutlingen Germany develops human organotypical HOT cell culture models related to the human immune system for the assessment of drug activity profiles and the selection of suitable drug candidates. The sophisticated models are made with differentiated cells and can be adapted to a broad range of different diseases - including rheumatoid arthritis osteoarthritis Crohns disease neurodermatitis COPD asthma and many others.

The 15-year history of RNA interference is not short on dramatic effects. It begins with the unexpected discovery and publication of the process of post-transcriptional gene silencing in 1998 for which the two Americans Andrew Fire and Craig Mello were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine just eight years after their discovery. In 2001 Thomas Tuschl succeeded in switching off genes in human cells with small synthetic pieces of RNA…

Article - 11/11/2013

Vitaphone GmbH - innovative telemedicine

Vitaphone GmbH from Mannheim is a leading international telemedical service provider. Its services range from telecardiological functional diagnostics, 24/7 telemonitoring of risk patients to integrative care management of chronically ill patients. Vitaphone is particularly involved in the application of structured telemonitoring-based therapy programmes for patients with heart failure.

Article - 12/08/2013

Sensovation AG: a special camera for rapid allergy diagnosis

Between 20 and 30 million Germans suffer from allergies to house dust mites, pollen and many other allergens¹. The diagnosis of allergies is usually a rather time-consuming process as more than 20,000 potential allergens need to be tested in order to identify the allergen that causes a patient’s particular symptoms². Sensovation AG has developed a technology that allows the parallel analysis of 20 allergens and which has the potential to simplify…

Article - 14/01/2013

Boehringer takes a deep breath: a look into the company’s respiratory R&D pipeline

At its 3rd International Research & Development (R&D) press conference, Boehringer Ingelheim gave journalists insights into its R&D pipeline. Around 200 scientists at the company’s site in Biberach are investigating new treatment options for patients with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), asthma, idiopathic lung fibrosis, lung cancer and other respiratory diseases. In addition, the researchers are also focusing on the…

Article - 18/03/2011

Allergen research – present and future

An allergy is a hypersensitivity disorder of the immune system. It is an exaggerated immune reaction to external stimuli such as pollen and is associated with symptoms that range in degree from uncomfortable (hay fever, asthma) to life-threatening (anaphylactic shock). Dr. Thomas Bethke, Medical Director of Nycomed Germany, explains in the following interview how a drug manufacturer approaches the research and development of anti-allergy…

Article - 07/03/2011

Farming lifestyle: microbial diversity keeps allergies away

Children who grow up on farms have a lower prevalence of allergies and asthma than other children in the same geographical region who do not grow up in such environments. A study by a European group of researchers published in the renowned New England Journal of Medicine adds to evidence supporting the hygiene hypothesis.

Dossier - 28/02/2011

Allergies – a major human plague

According to the Federal Health Monitoring Information System a persons life expectancy is reduced by around one per cent due to allergies and their effects. Knowledge about the molecular mechanisms that lead to disorders in the interplay of the immune system and the environment is a prerequisite for developing new therapies for the causal treatment of allergies.

Article - 14/02/2011

Affimed’s novel TandAb® antibodies enter clinical development phase

With the initiation in October 2010 of a Phase I (“first in man”) study of the tetravalent, bispecific antibody AFM13 based on its proprietary TandAb® technology, Heidelberg-based Affimed Therapeutics AG has become a clinical drug development company.

Article - 20/12/2010

Invisible danger with long-term consequences

According to official figures mycotoxins which are toxic secondary metabolites produced by moulds are found in around of 20 per cent of the European crop harvest. Even the smallest concentrations of mycotoxins can have devastating toxic effects causing cancer or posing a risk to fertility and development. Alexandra Heussner from the University of Konstanz is investigating ochratoxins whose chronic effect represents a huge danger to human health.

Germans like natural solutions and show a marked preference for medicines made from St. John’s wort, valerian, devil’s claw or Marian Thistle. However, when taking herbal medicines people are well advised to be cautious: "herbal" does not automatically mean safe, warns Thomas Simmet, pharmacologist from the University Hospital of Ulm.

Article - 11/10/2010

Cow sheds and asthma genetics

Many genes are known to play a role in the development of the chronic lung disease bronchial asthma. Dr. Andrea Heinzmanns team at the University Medical Centre Freiburg has investigated some of these genes and is also interested in epigenetic factors. It is known that asthma is not only caused by genetic factors but can also be triggered by mechanisms that affect the genes without changing the genetic code.

Nitec Pharma AG, a spin-off from Merck (Darmstadt, Germany) and Horizon Therapeutics, Inc. (USA) have announced the combination of their businesses to become Horizon Pharma, Inc. and the filing of a registration statement for a proposed initial public offering. The company’s Mannheim-based subsidiary, which is focused on the development and commercialisation of drugs for the treatment of pain and chronic inflammatory diseases, has been named…

Article - 15/07/2010

A special focus on intercellular mediators

Transmembrane proteins constitute around one third of all cellular proteins. Around half of all drugs that are currently on the market target the function of a specific class of transmembrane proteins, i.e. the G-protein coupled receptors. However, little is yet known about how transmembrane proteins are integrated into the membranes and how they are folded. Dr. Jörg H. Kleinschmidt hopes to shed light into the mechanisms of membrane protein…

Press release - 29/04/2010

Nycomed and Merck & Co., Inc., announce commercialization agreements for Daxas® in Europe and Canada

Nycomed and Merck Co. Inc. based in Whitehouse Station New Jersey and known as MSD outside the USA and Canada announced that they have entered into a co-promotion agreement for Canada and certain European countries for the commercialization of Daxas roflumilast an investigational once-daily tablet for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease COPD.

Article - 18/03/2010

Boehringer Ingelheim researchers to focus on inflammation

Boehringer Ingelheim is hoping to find ways to use anti-inflammatory mechanisms of action to improve the treatment of respiratory diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma. Clinical studies will show what kind of improvements patients can expect from the substances, which are currently at different stages of development. Drugs to widen the bronchia, marketed by Boehringer Ingelheim, will in the medium term become…

Article - 04/03/2010

Asthma and COPD – how to control centres of inflammation

In today’s world, not all asthma patients benefit from adequate treatment. There is no cure at all for people who suffer from COPD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. A group of researchers led by Dr. Marco Idzko at the Freiburg University Medical Centre are looking for new strategies to treat lung diseases such as these. They have already discovered that ATP, which is the major energy currency molecule in the body, has an effect on the…