Healthcare industry

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.

Article - 01/02/2018

Combined test systems to advance the development of drugs for treating Alzheimer’s

Which substances are suitable for treating neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's? Due to complex biochemical relationships, testing suitable drug candidates is difficult, especially in the early drug development phase. Many predictive test systems only cover individual aspects. A team from Baden-Württemberg and France is now combining different models to develop a new approach.

Article - 15/01/2018

Blockchain technology as an opportunity for more transparency and self-determination

In the healthcare sector, blockchain technology is still in the early stages of development, although it has huge potential in this field. It is expected that patients will particularly benefit from the introduction of a decentralised database for managing and sharing health-related information with treating physicians. Statutory health insurance companies become less important as intermediaries. But how exactly does this technology work?

Article - 07/12/2017

GoSilico: a formula for the industrial purification of biomolecules

“Stop experimenting – GoSilico” is the motto of a young start-up company from Karlsruhe. The founding team of GoSilico GmbH is causing a furore with a simulation software that would make many laboratory experiments obsolete. The chromatographic separation of biomolecules from organisms, samples and cell cultures can be reliably simulated after just a few starter experiments. This saves time, work, material and costs in pharmaceutical development.

Article - 13/11/2017

An artificial heart valve with the potential to grow

About 30,000 artificial heart valves are implanted in Germany every year. The durability of these heart valves presents a major challenge, requiring them to be exchanged time and again, especially in young patients. Researchers from the Stuttgart Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB have developed a new artificial heart valve material on which cells that are naturally present in a patient’s blood can form new…

Article - 06/11/2017

HEIDELTEC: gummy bears may replace injections

Peptide- and protein-based drugs like those used for treating diabetes, cancer and autoimmune diseases cannot be administered orally. This is because these biomolecules degrade in the gastrointestinal tract, thus preventing them from reaching their target site in the body. Protein- and peptide-base drugs therefore have to be administered by way of injection, which is comparatively complicated and painful. However, a start-up company called…

The next generation of Antiviral Therapies: Co-Led by Stichting Participatie Atriva and High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), Atriva Therapeutics GmbH has received a second tranche of its running seed financing in total of € 3 Mn from Dutch, German and Canadian investors, after lead compound ATR-002 (Atriva’s antiviral MEK-Inhibitor against Influenza) has passed an important preclinical milestone paving the way to clinical development stage.

Article - 14/08/2017

Saskia Biskup – towards precision medicine

Therapeutic success can only be achieved when diagnoses are as precise as possible. Nowadays, genetic analyses can make precise diagnoses for many diseases. And thanks to high-throughput technology, results are available to patients very quickly. Dr. Dr. Saskia Biskup recognised the importance of precision medicine many years ago and went on to found CeGaT GmbH, a company that combines human genetics with high-throughput sequencing. Three…

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…

Expert interview - 02/08/2017

Innovative diagnosis and treatment methods – regulation of their reimbursement in the German healthcare sector

The German healthcare cost reimbursement system differentiates between in- and outpatient medical products. In an interview with Caroline Ref and Jasmin Dabrowski from BIOPRO Baden-Württemberg, Michael Weißer, Chief Operating Officer of AiM GmbH in Lörrach, gives interesting insights into the reimbursement of medical care products, in particular with regard to the introduction of new and innovative diagnosis and treatment methods.

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 - 19/06/2017

Eric Gottwald: innovative 3D cell culture systems for pharmaceutical testing

Realistic alternatives to animal testing are more in demand than ever, especially in the drug development field. One possible solution is 3D cell cultures that possess the characteristics of the tissue from which they originate. Such systems were already developed at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) many years ago. Due to the huge demand for such systems, Prof. Dr. Eric Gottwald and two of his colleagues founded a company called…

GATC, one of the leading sequencing provider will be a part of the Eurofins Group as of July 2017 to create the leading company in the worldwide sequencing market.

Article - 01/06/2017

Biotechnology – key technology of the 21st century

According to a study published by the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech) on 5th April, biotechnology is a key technology of the 21st century and has huge innovation potential. What are the trends within the industry and what are the challenges we face?

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.

High-Tech Gründerfonds is investing EUR 600,000 in Reutlingen-based SIGNATOPE GmbH. SIGNATOPE will use the funds to advance the development of its unique biomarker assay system, that has been established to support pharmaceutical research. The technology is based on special antibodies and allows the early detection of possible side effects during the drug development process. Thereby, the need for animal testing will be reduced while the drug…

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 - 19/04/2017

Are start-ups a matter for the boss? A professor’s thoughts on university spin-offs

Research work and entrepreneurship are by no means mutually exclusive. There are numerous successful university spin-offs in the life sciences sector that prove this only too well. However, the road from a good idea to a commercially successful company can be long and arduous. Those who benefit from the support of their boss from the outset can consider themselves extremely fortunate. Prof. Dr. Hans-Georg Rammensee talks about his experience with…

On 24 April 2017 is "World Day for Laboratory Animals" – the BIOPRO provides information about this topic. In Baden-Württemberg alone, up to 600,000 animals are used for scientific purposes every year. In order to reduce their pain and suffering as much as possible, researchers all over the world are working on the development of innovative methods to replace animal experiments, including cell culture methods for drug analysis,…

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 - 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 - 23/03/2017

CeMIT – professional innovation management for the medical device sector

With the establishment of the Centrum für Medizintechnische Innovationen Tübingen, or CeMIT, the University Hospital of Tübingen is building a bridge between hospitals and medical device companies, which share the aim to develop new and better medical technology products and methods. Partners from small and medium-sized companies are expected to particularly benefit from the services that CeMIT provides and the guidance it can offer in finding…