Healthcare industry

Lipid Therapeutics, a biotechnology company, announced today that it has initiated a Phase IIb clinical trial with its lead product LT-02 in patients with ulcerative colitis. Lipid Therapeutics received approval for this multi-center, international trial from the authorities in Germany and Lithuania and is awaiting approval in Romania. Patient enrollment has already started in Germany and Lithuania.

CureVac GmbH, the mRNA company, today announced that the Paul-Ehrlich-Institute, the German regulatory authority for medicinal products, has approved the start of a Phase IIa trial for CV9201 to treat Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC).

Article - 08/04/2013

Top position for German placebo research

Placebo research at Tübingen University is part of a German network that is a world leader in the field. One of the research priorities relates to the perception of pain and the underlying neurobiological mechanisms.

Article - 26/04/2016

Methadone for cancer treatment? Clinical trials are needed to prove the effectiveness of this opioid

Claudia Friesen, an oncologist at Ulm University Hospital, has achieved what many scientists dream of: she has made a discovery that has increased existing knowledge, and can be used to help people. People with cancers that are resistant to all conventional therapies who have been given methadone for pain relief in combination with conventional chemo- or radiation therapy, have reported that tumours have shrunk or disappeared completely. Clinical…

Article - 18/08/2014

Biometry: Peter Martus works at the interface of mathematics and medicine

It’s not computer science, but it’s close to data: Prof. Dr. Peter Martus has an in-depth knowledge of how professional biotechnology and medical statistics are generated. Prof. Martus works at the University of Tübingen where he brings his know-how to clinical trials as well as working on life sciences projects where statistical issues need to be resolved.

One year after its seed financing, SpinDiag GmbH closes a second financing round of EUR 3 million (USD 3.4 million) as planned. The financing will enable SpinDiag to complete the product development of its first product for screening for antibiotic-resistant bacteria and to start clinical trials. This will pave the way for regulatory approval in the EU.

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…

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.

Apogenix, a biopharmaceutical company developing next generation immunotherapeutics, announced today that it has received regulatory approval to start a clinical phase II trial with asunercept in COVID-19 patients in Russia. The ASUNCTIS trial will be a multi-center, randomized, controlled, open-label trial to assess the efficacy and safety of asunercept in patients with severe COVID-19 disease.

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…

immatics biotechnologies GmbH announced on June 2nd, 2010 that it has signed a Clinical Trial Agreement with the Center for Cancer Research (CCR), National Cancer Institute (NCI), USA. The Agreement covers the clinical development of immatics’ therapeutic cancer vaccine IMA950 which is to be evaluated in the field of brain cancer, specifically glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of brain cancer.

immatics biotechnologies GmbH, a biopharmaceutical company developing advanced therapeutic vaccines that are active against cancer, announced today that the first patients have been vaccinated in the IMPRINT study, a pivotal Phase III trial with IMA901, the company’s lead cancer vaccine for the treatment of renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Article - 29/11/2010

Adverse skin reactions - more than just skin deep

Severe skin reactions such as toxic epidermal necrolysis TEN and Stevens-Johnson syndrome SJS are caused by drugs that have originally been developed for the treatment or alleviation of other diseases. In some cases the consumption of these drugs can be fatal. The Centre for Documentation of Severe Skin Reactions dZh in Freiburg has been collecting information on rare skin diseases for around 20 years.

Article - 13/11/2010

Franz Porzsolt is turning existing beliefs and dogmas on their head

Porzsolt a 64-year-old clinical economist specialist in internal medicine and oncologist enjoys turning accepted truths on their head. Many colleagues regard him as an outspoken critic of others for his tendency to refer to science as theory and clinical settings as practice. Porzsolt criticises evidence-based medicine as it is currently understood and applied.

Retina Implant AG, the leading developer of subretinal implants for patients blinded by retinitis pigmentosa (RP), today announced the completion of an €26 million round of private equity funding. The funding represents a significant recommitment by both Retina Implant's long-standing investors and new investors, and will be used to establish new clinical centres around the world. It will also help the company to initiate reimbursement…

Press release - 08/08/2012

Apogenix: APG101 Exceeds Expectations with Controlled Phase II Clinical Trial

The biopharmaceutical company Apogenix GmbH announced today that the phase II clinical proof of concept trial with APG101 as treatment of recurrent glioblastoma has met and exceeded expectations in the final analysis of the data. In this randomized controlled clinical study the patients were treated either with a combination of APG101 plus radiotherapy (APG101+RT group) or radiotherapy alone (RT group). The primary objective of the trial was to…

Press release - 09/01/2012

Apogenix Raises 7.5 Million Euros to Further Advance APG101 to Treat Glioblastoma and other Tumors

The biopharmaceutical company Apogenix GmbH today announced the successful completion of a € 7.5 million financing round led by dievini Hopp BioTech holding GmbH & Co. KG (dievini). Other investors include the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), the founders and the executive management team of Apogenix. These funds will enable Apogenix to further advance the phase II clinical trial of APG101 to treat Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) and other…

Article - 17/02/2009

Tissue engineering companies and EU obstacles

With the new regulation on advanced therapy medicinal products the European Union has tried to establish legal certainty with regard to gene therapy somatic cell therapy and tissue engineering products. However Dr. Heinz W. Joseph of TETEC AG is sure that the new guidelines will lead to problems for small and medium-sized companies.

Medical technology - 14/03/2016

The operating room of the future: minimally invasive and future-oriented intervention techniques

Being able to diagnose and treat tumour patients in just a few hours is just one of the many promising goals of the Fraunhofer Project Group for Automation in Medicine and Biotechnology (PAMB). The overall goal of the Intervention and Therapy research group is to take innovative technologies for diagnostic and therapeutic interventions from laboratory development to prototype production for use in clinical trials.

Dossier - 10/11/2014

Cell and gene therapies: from bench to bedside

While cell therapy has become standard treatment for a number of blood cancers, most cell and gene therapy approaches for the treatment of hereditary and metabolic diseases, neurodegenerative disorders and cancer are still in the experimental phases or early clinical trials. However, recent successes give rise to the hope that cell and gene therapies will in future make important contributions to previously incurable diseases.

Press release - 28/05/2009

CureVac Begins Clinical Study with mRNA Vaccine

CureVac GmbH announced that the Paul-Ehrlich-Institute, the German regulatory authority for medicinal products, has approved the Clinical Trial Application (CTA) to begin a Phase I clinical study with RNActive® derived mRNA vaccine CV9201. The vaccine will be tested in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer who have been pre-treated with different therapies.

Article - 18/01/2018

Medications that target metastasing tumours

Tumour metastases are often resistant to the drug that is used to eliminate the primary tumour. Genome-wide analyses of mutation patterns in the primary tumour and its metastases provide information on the aggressiveness of cancer and may help to find the best available means of further treatment. This has been demonstrated by scientists from Heidelberg in a clinical trial on the molecular evolution of renal cancer.

Press release - 02/11/2011

Using Viruses to Fight Brain Tumors

Parvoviruses can enter and kill cancer cells, but they do not cause disease in humans. Since 1992, scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) have been studying these viruses with the aim of developing a viral therapy against dangerous brain tumors that are almost impossible to treat.

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.

Article - 22/10/2012

syneed imaging: precise visualisation of functional tissue properties

Functional medical imaging modalities are of great significance in modern medical diagnostics. Existing ways of diagnosing diseases are now being expanded with the arrival of the innovative parameter imaging method. syneed imaging uses proprietary highly sensitive software for the analysis of dynamic image data. This software complements standard methods such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging and increases the significance of…