Healthcare industry

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 - 24/07/2017

Cancer medicine development as a science and industry partnership

The German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and Bayer AG are collaborating on a strategic partnership focusing on the development of innovative cancer therapies. The two partners have developed an active substance which selectively blocks a mutation of a metabolic enzyme that occurs in certain types of cancer. The substance has been successfully tested in preclinical studies and is now also being tested in a clinical trial on patients with brain…

Article - 04/07/2017

Ruxolitinib – successful graft-versus-host disease treatment

Graft-versus-host disease is a serious complication in leukaemia patients who have been given a blood stem cell transplant from a genetically different person. Prof. Dr. Nikolas von Bubnoff and Prof. Dr. Robert Zeiser from the Department of Haematology, Oncology and Stem Cell Transplantation at Freiburg University Medical Centre initiated a Germany-wide study to show that an active substance called ruxolitinib has a promising therapeutic effect.…

Article - 26/06/2017

Hope for mRNA vaccines despite damper

The pressure is on to develop novel vaccines based on messenger RNA and aimed at combating cancer and protecting against pandemics. Although mRNA vaccination as a cancer monotherapy has suffered a setback this year, the industry is nevertheless confident that it will succeed because of existing proof that mRNA vaccines stimulate the body's immune defence.

Article - 31/05/2017

Peritoneal cancer – long-term survival with good quality of life

Thanks to an innovative treatment procedure that has been in use since 2005, surgeons from Tübingen University Hospital have been able to prolong the survival of patients with peritoneal cancer and give them a higher quality of life. This is done using a technique based on complex surgery followed by immediate intraoperative local chemotherapy on the peritoneum.

Article - 24/05/2017

Ralf Reski: from moss to humans

Prof. Dr. Ralf Reski conducts basic research at the University of Freiburg. But this is not all the well-known plant biotechnologist does. He also wants his ideas to become concrete products. This is why he established Greenovation Biotech GmbH, a company which produces novel drugs in mosses. The company’s first moss-produced drug candidate – Moss-aGal – a recombinant form of human α-galactosidase, is now being tested in a phase I clinical trial.…

TolerogenixX GmbH has developed a patented and clinically tested cell therapy technique for individualised immunosuppression in transplant patients. The technique enables the targeted disabling of undesired reactions caused by the immune system’s defences. As a seed stage investor, High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) will finance this innovative technique and the preparations for Phase II of the clinical trial, which begins in spring 2018. Further…

Personalised Medicine - 04/05/2017

Big data make therapy work better

An international team of researchers has shown for acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) that cancer therapy can be personalised using big data. The authors of the study “believe this paper is a step towards validation of genetic techniques as a route to personalised medicine”.

Article - 20/04/2017

Health app to be integrated into clinical trials

Questionnaires are a thing of the past, now it is becoming increasingly likely that information for clinical trials will be collected via apps in the future. A new research platform has been developed to prepare patient data transmitted via smartphone applications. Doctors who are carrying out research will thus have access to more accurate results that will also ultimately benefit patients.

Press release - 06/04/2017

Start-up in the garage – a location with prospects

Newly established start-up wins award – Mireca Medicines GmbH develops treatment for hereditary eye disease and receives Innovation Award of the biotechnology regions in Germany

The Commission welcomes the adoption of its proposal for two Regulations on medical devices which establish a modernised and more robust EU legislative framework to ensure better protection of public health and patient safety.

Article - 07/03/2017

KiTZ: Hopp Children’s Tumour Center at NCT Heidelberg

The Heidelberg University Hospital and the DKFZ have established the "Hopp Children's Tumor Center at NCT Heidelberg" (KiTZ) where doctors, scientists, nursing staff and other specialists work side by side on new diagnostic and therapeutic options to help children with cancer.

Article - 22/02/2017

Review: New European directives will impact the medical technology industry

The new Medical Device Regulation (MDR) and the first In Vitro Diagnostic Devices Regulation (IVDR) are likely to become European law in the second half of 2017, with transitional periods of three and five years, respectively.

Article - 26/01/2017

Clinical cancer registration to improve patient treatment and care

Germany records around 500,000 new cases of cancer every year. The number is steadily growing, mainly due to an ageing population that leads to an increased risk of cancer. The German government is planning to establish clinical cancer registries in all German states so that all cancer patients receive the best possible treatment. In Baden-Württemberg, all new cancer cases are already recorded. However, the data are still not as comprehensive as…

Dossier - 17/01/2017

Phytopharmaceuticals – fighting disease with natural substances

Phytopharmaceuticals are herbal medicines whose efficacy is down to one or several plant substances or active ingredients. They have been used for treating diseases since time immemorial. This traditional knowledge is still the basis for many medicinal products made from plants or parts thereof. Herbal medicines have been produced in Baden-Württemberg for many generations.

HepaRegeniX GmbH, a new Biotech company developing innovative treatments for liver diseases, announced today the completion of a €9 million Series A financing. The round was led by Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund GmbH (BIVF) and Novo Seeds, and complemented by the High-Tech Gruenderfonds and coparion.

Article - 13/12/2016

Smart sensor technology from Ulm can do more than just breath analysis

Detecting disease-specific molecules in human breath is technically feasible, but time-consuming and rather costly. "µbreath" could soon change this. The breath gas analysis device has all the necessary requirements for commercial success in the healthcare sector: it is compact, accurate, highly sensitive and fast. The chemist who developed µbreath, Prof. Boris Mizaikoff from Ulm University, and his partners are hoping to start…

Konstanz, Germany, November 29, 2016 and Osaka, Japan, November 30, 2016 – Takeda Pharmaceuticals Company Limited, (“Takeda”) today announced that it will invest more than 100 Million Euros to build a new manufacturing plant for its dengue vaccine candidate in Singen, Germany.

Expert interview - 14/11/2016

The great untapped potential of herbal medicines

Baden-Württemberg is home to a large number of companies that produce herbal medicines, i.e. preparations made from plant extracts rather than pure compounds. In an interview with Dr. Ariane Pott from BIOPRO Baden-Württemberg, Professor Dr. Michael Wink, Director of the Institute of Pharmacy and Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Heidelberg, explains how these special extracts are placed on the market and how they differ from medicines…

Article - 13/09/2016

Catalent – galenics experts from Schorndorf

Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are working intensively on the discovery and development of new drugs for the efficient and safe treatment of diseases. However, before drugs are authorised for treating humans and animals, they have to be made into a form that is acceptable. That is where a company called Catalent Pharma Solutions, with a facility in Schorndorf in the south of Germany, comes in.

Article - 12/09/2016

New target for the therapy of hepatocellular carcinoma discovered

Hepatocellular carcinoma is the second most common cause of cancer deaths worldwide. If the tumour is at an advanced stage, doctors have few treatment options. Researchers led by Prof. Dr. Lars Zender from the University of Tübingen have now identified one of the cancer's Achilles' heels, namely, the interaction between C-MYC and AURKA proteins, which can be destabilised with a drug, thus killing cancer cells.

Article - 08/08/2016

First achromatopsia gene therapy clinical trial in Germany is going well

Around 3000 people suffer from achromatopsia in Germany. Achromatopsia is an inherited visual disorder characterised by the absence of full colour vision. The disease is caused by a genetic defect that makes the retina's cone photoreceptors, needed for daylight and colour vision, non-functional. There is currently no cure for achromatopsia. Scientists from Tübingen University Hospital and their colleagues from Munich and New York have now…

Article - 02/08/2016

Can the ticking Huntington clock be stopped?

An early phase clinical study involving thirty-six Huntington’s disease (HD) patients is currently underway to investigate whether a method called gene silencing can cure the disease. If the gene that causes the disease can be turned off, it would be the first step towards a treatment that not only fights symptoms but actually treats the causes of HD, hence providing a cure.

Company profile - 18/07/2016

mbits imaging GmbH – mobile app in the field of radiology

Trying to get a second opinion from a medical colleague who is at home preparing dinner may be quite a challenge, especially when the colleague does not have access to the necessary image data. This has now become easier in the field of radiology thanks to a mobile app called mRay, which provides a reliable way for radiologists to share medical images on mobile devices.