Healthcare industry

New drugs are intended to help stop viral zoonoses – infections that jump from animals to humans. To study suitable inhibitors, Prof. Dr Christian Klein from the Institute of Pharmacy and Molecular Biotechnology (IPMB) of Heidelberg University is receiving funding in the amount of 450,000 euros from the Volkswagen Foundation.

Press release - 21/10/2009

GRAFFINITY enters into drug discovery research collaboration with GENENTECH

HEIDELBERG, October 15, 2009 — Graffinity Pharmaceuticals GmbH announced today that it has entered into a drug discovery research collaboration with Genentech, Inc, a wholly-owned member of the Roche Group (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY). With this collaboration Genentech will gain access to Graffinity’s proprietary, fragment-based drug discovery technology.

Article - 16/01/2012

Manfred Jung: drug discovery and the epigenetic code

Prof. Dr. Manfred Jungs team at the University of Freiburg are chemical epigeneticists whose research involves the development of methods that enable them to identify and optimise new therapeutic drugs which are able to alter the epigenetic code of cancer and other cell types. The team use a perfidious worm for their research.

Dossier - 01/07/2013

Electrophysiology – from cardiac pacemakers to drug discovery

Electrochemical reactions are involved in many processes in the human organism. Electrophysiology is the study of the central processes of electrical and chemical interaction and communication between neurons and muscle cells, including the transmission and processing of signals in the nerves and the subsequent contraction of the muscles. For example, electrophysiology studies examine the rhythm which which our heart pumps blood through the…

Press release - 15/01/2014

Hit Discovery Constance GmbH: a new hub for HTS and compound management

Hit Discovery Constance GmbH (“HDC”), a new joint venture organisation between Lead Discovery Center (Dortmund/Germany), Centre for Drug Design and Discovery (CD3, KULeuven, Leuven/Belgium) and Axxam (Milan/Italy) has started its operation. The new company is based in Constance (Germany) and will make use of the already established equipment and know-how of the former Takeda/Nycomed/Altana screening and compound management facilities at the site.

Strasbourg, France based NovAliX SAS today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a majority interest in Graffinity Pharmaceuticals GmbH of Heidelberg, Germany, a leading fragment based drug discovery services company. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

Press release - 23/05/2012

GlaxoSmithKline to fully acquire Cellzome for 99 million U.S. dollar

GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire those shares it does not currently own in Cellzome, a leader in the development and advancement of proteomics technologies, for £61 million (US$99 million) in cash. Cellzome, a privately owned company with laboratories in Cambridge, UK, and Heidelberg, Germany, will become part of GSK’s R&D organisation.

Article - 08/02/2016

MalVa GmbH – a protein cocktail that could potentially produce a high protection malaria vaccine

MalVa GmbH was founded as a spin-off company of Heidelberg University Hospital around five years ago and its aim is to develop an effective and safe inactivated vaccine against malaria. MalVa GmbH’s innovative strategy to combat this infectious disease involves a cocktail of several parasite antigens.

Article - 26/05/2014

With printable biotech through the entire sequence space

A peephole is not enough for Frank Rosenau. He wants to see everything. The insatiable scientist is a biotechnologist at Ulm University and his aim is to exploit everything the emerging field of printable biotechnology can offer to miniaturization in pharmaceutical research. Working with chemists, physicists and medical doctors, Rosenau focuses on the cell-free production of all theoretically possible peptides in the human body.

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 - 16/09/2011

Cellzome Achieves Clinical Candidate Milestone from Inflammation Alliance with GlaxoSmithKline

Cellzome’s Kinobeads™ platform drives design of selective clinical candidate and lead for additional kinase target. Cellzome announces that it has successfully reached the clinical candidate milestone for a program as well as a lead declaration milestone for a further target (under a separate program) as part of the kinase alliance with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). The achievement of these milestones triggers undisclosed payments from GSK.

Phenex Pharmaceuticals AG (Phenex) today announced that the company has received a 100 M USD milestone payment from Gilead Sciences, Inc. of Foster City, CA, U.S.A., for its program with GS-9674 targeting nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).

Evotec SE announced today the launch of beLAB2122 in the Rhine- Main-Neckar region to efficiently advance first-in-class therapeutic concepts into investable drug discovery projects. Mediated and supported by BioRN, Evotec’s newest BRIDGE brings together the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (“EMBL”), the German Cancer Research Center (“DKFZ”), the Goethe University Frankfurt, Heidelberg University and the University of Tübingen.

Article - 28/03/2010

Acrovis biostructures: because the beginning of a process is crucial

Targeted substance design using an advanced platform technology that takes into account the natural dynamics of pharmaceutical substances and targets early on during the discovery process – this is what the Ulm-based biopharmaceutical company Acrovis biostructures GmbH offers. Acrovis has all the instruments needed to be able to optimally determine the structure of pharmaceutical substances.

Dossier - 12/12/2011

Development of new molecular biomarkers

Biomarkers are playing an increasing role in drug discovery and development. They can be used as molecular indicators for diseases and disease risks as well as for monitoring the effectiveness of therapy. Highly specific molecular biomarkers are being identified using state-of-the-art technologies from the fields of genomics, proteomics and metabolomics.

The new drug screening and safety pharmacology laboratory at NMI Technologie Transfer GmbH NMI TT GmbH in Reutlingen with its standardised and special test systems complies fully with the requirements of safety pharmacology tests.

Phenex Pharmaceuticals AG (Phenex) today announced the achievement of a milestone in the collaboration with Janssen Biotech, Inc. (Janssen), which triggers a 6 M US$ payment by Janssen. In late 2012, Phenex and Janssen entered into a research collaboration on RORgt with a view to develop new therapeutic approaches for chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.

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.

Press release - 21/01/2010

Open access drug discovery database launches with half a million compounds

ChEMBLdb a vast online database of information on the properties and activities of drugs and drug-like small molecules and their targets was launched on January 18 2010 with information on over half a million compounds. The data lie at the heart of translating information from the human genome into successful new drugs in the clinic.

Article - 21/12/2016

For all types of tests: Signatope’s biomarker assays

Signatope is a new biotech company that has been offering innovative biomarker assays for application in drug discovery since August 2016. The company’s assays can be used in all phases of drug development to detect potential adverse drug effects on the kidneys, liver and other organs in any species whatsoever using minute amounts of sample.

European biotech-platform and drug discovery companies will have easier access to Polyclone Bioservices assay design and validation services through its newly announced partnership with Innovendia Consulting from Owingen. EU and national government funded consortia will benefit from the more immediate availability of Polyclones unique combination of in vitro in silico assay design and validation capabilities.

Press release - 09/03/2015

Gilead Sciences aquires FXR-program of Phenex Pharmaceuticals AG

Gilead Sciences, Inc. (Foster City, CA, U.S.A.) and Phenex Pharmaceuticals AG (Ludwigshafen/Heidelberg, Germany), a privately-held biotechnology company, announced the signing of a definitive agreement under which Gilead will acquire Phenex’s Farnesoid X Receptor (FXR) program comprising small molecule FXR agonists for the treatment of liver diseases including nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).

Article - 26/05/2014

HDC – state-of-the-art drug research at a location with a long-standing tradition

Hit Discovery Constance GmbH (HDC) searches for new drug candidates on behalf of academic institutions and the pharmaceutical industry. Established in early 2014 on the Konstanz Campus (former Takeda/Nycomed/Altana research site), the joint venture organization offers high-throughput screening and compound management and storage services to support the transfer of academic research into the development of new medicines. With its high-throughput…

Expert interview - 14/11/2016

Fighting diseases with plant-derived active compounds

Herbal medicines have a long tradition in Germany. In an interview with Dr. Ariane Pott from BIOPRO Baden-Württemberg GmbH, Professor Dr. Michael Wink, Director of the Institute of Pharmacy and Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Heidelberg, highlighted that plants produce compounds that are effective against microorganisms and that can also be put to good use in the treatment of human diseases.