Helen Albert

My Recent Work

Selected articles 2026

Inside Precision Medicine •

Riding the Gene Therapy Rollercoaster Into 2026

It has been a tough, if interesting, year for the gene therapy space, with many ups and downs culminating in some optimism and increased funding and investment as 2025 drew to a close.
A continued financial slump in biotech investment after an all-time high in 2021, combined with financial uncertainty triggered by tariffs and inflation concerns at the beginning of Trump’s second term in January, caused the XBI biotech index, a fund that usually indicates the state of the U.S. biotech industry, t...
Inside Precision Medicine •

Revalia Bio’s Quest to Replace Animal Models with Human Organs

In recent years there has been a lot of interest in new technology to improve the preclinical testing space by innovative use of cell culture and tissue engineering, as well as with computing advances like artificial intelligence. Greg Tietjen, PhD, CEO of Revalia Bio, aims to go one step further by using these new techniques and testing candidate drugs on donated human organs that are not suitable for transplant.
Preclinical research has traditionally relied on animal testing as a first step be...
Chemical & Engineering News •

Drug dose monitoring with a DNA-based microneedle sensor

A wearable DNA-based sensor similar to a continuous glucose monitor can accurately and safely detect vancomycin concentrations in the body (Nat. Biotechnol. 2026, DOI: 10.1038/s41587-026-03010-w). The results are part of a small pilot trial for the biosensor, which detects chemicals in the interstitial fluid just under the skin. Notably, this technology has the potential to measure many different drugs and biomarkers in the body, its developers say....

Additional work can be found at the below sites:

BioPharma Reporter and Outsourcing Pharma :  https://docs.google.com/docume...
Inside Precision Medicine author page: https://www.insideprecisionmed...

Selected articles 2025

Inside Precision Medicine •

In Conversation with Vanessa Carter and Sue Charles

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) remains a challenging and life-threatening global health problem, despite some progress in tackling the problem over the last decade. Listening to stories from patients who have survived AMR can help to humanize the issue and really make people understand the problem.
AMR was declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2015, with the first global action plan and United Nations General Assembly high-level meeting occurring in 2016.
Since th...
Inside Precision Medicine •

Pulling Antimicrobial Innovation Forward One Step at a Time

Antimicrobial drugs have saved billions of lives over the last century, but during the last 30 years, deaths due to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) have increased exponentially. While there are many early-stage companies and researchers working to bring new treatments and diagnostics to market, success seems difficult due to reimbursement issues.
The ability of some pathogenic bacteria to resist antibiotics became clear shortly after drugs like penicillin began to be produced in large quantities...
Advanced Science News •

High yield, eco-friendly rice reduces methane emissions by 70%

A group of scientists have bred a new variety of rice that could help combat rising methane levels around the world.  


“Methane has a very strong impact. It’s around 20 times stronger than carbon dioxide,” explained Anna Schnürer, a microbiologist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and one of the contributing scientists. “Rice field cultivation corresponds to approximately 13% of the methane that humans are releasing into the atmosphere. So, it’s having a significant effect on...
Inside Precision Medicine •

Tackling Autoimmune Disease with Cell and Gene Therapy

Over the last decade, the cell and gene therapy space has changed beyond recognition. The field has experienced ups and downs, but such advanced therapeutics are becoming more mainstream and moving into spaces outside cancer and rare diseases.
At the end of 2015, only three cell and gene therapy products had been approved by the FDA. By the end of 2024, this figure had increased to 43 products, with more therapies approved every year.
Notable successes to date are chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)...
Inside Precision Medicine •

In Conversation with Tiffany Thorn, Founder of BiVictriX

Cancer therapeutics has advanced enormously over the last 20 years, with many products developed to harness or target the immune system to better treat a range of tumors. One such approach combines antibodies with tumor targeting drugs to form antibody-drug conjugates or ADCs.
These cancer targeting agents have several advantages such as precise targeting of cancer cells, less toxicity than traditional chemotherapy, and enhanced efficacy in difficult-to-treat cancers. Overall, 14 ADCs have now b...
Advanced Science News •

Common bacteria could be used to produce biodegradable bioplastics

A research team based in Korea has succeeded in engineering E. coli bacteria to produce poly(ester amide)s, useful plastics that have a range of thermal and mechanical properties and are often biodegradable.


Lead investigator Sang Yup Lee, a professor at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon, and colleagues believe this method could be a sustainable, more environmentally friendly way of producing these useful plastics than currently used methods.


“Petroleum-base...
Advanced Science News •

Sustainable building material extracted from seawater

A seashell inspired material that locks away carbon dioxide could make concrete more sustainable.  The process to make this material involves splitting seawater using carbon dioxide and electricity and can also be used to produce hydrogen for fuel adding an additional benefit to the method.


“This research develops a method to capture, convert, and store carbon dioxide in the form of solid minerals, which can be incorporated as supplementary materials in concrete,” said Alessandro Rotta Loria,...
Chemistry World •

Less than 10% of plastics are produced using recycled materials

An analysis of the global plastics industry shows that only 9.5% of plastic was made from recycled materials in 2022. Almost a third of plastic waste produced during that year was allocated for recycling, but only half was actually recycled. ‘The low recycling rate is due to a number of challenges including plastic diversity, contamination and economic barriers,’ explains lead author Quanyin Tan at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
The amount of plastic produced globally has increased from 2 mill...
Inside Precision Medicine •

In Conversation with Chris Loose, CEO and Co-founder of Progentos Therapeutics

Current therapies targeting multiple sclerosis (MS) primarily target the symptoms of the disease but do not repair neurological damage caused by the condition. This is something that Chris Loose, PhD, CEO and co-founder of Progentos Therapeutics, and his colleagues are hoping to remedy.
MS is a chronic, immune-mediated condition that results in the demyelination of neurons in the central nervous system. Some people have a relapsing-remitting version of the condition and others have a gradual pro...
Inside Precision Medicine •

Harnessing AI Innovation to Modernize Clinical Trials

Clinical trials are an essential part of bringing new medicines to patients but are often slow and expensive to complete. Innovations in artificial intelligence (AI) over the last two decades are already having a positive impact on the way these trials are run and have the potential to improve them further in many ways, ranging from simple economics to more diverse trial cohorts.
The first randomized controlled clinical trial is generally agreed to have taken place in 1946 in the U.K. to test th...
Chemistry World •

Europe and US face diminishing lithium supply for electric vehicle batteries

Lithium supplies in Europe and the US will not meet demand for electric vehicle batteries by 2030, despite significant predicted increases in production over this time, new research suggests.
China is predicted to continue its control of the market with greater access to imported lithium and better refining capacity than other regions, as well as a large domestic electric battery industry.
‘China is currently completely dominating,’ explains André Månberger, study co-author and senior lecturer...
Inside Precision Medicine •

Breaking into Precision Psychiatry

There is a lot of potential for precision medicine to improve the diagnosis and treatment of psychiatric disorders like depression. The complexity of these conditions, a lack of reliable biomarkers, and various other factors have made targeted therapeutic development in this area hard, but this is something that Delphine Charvin, PhD, CEO and co-founder of Elkedonia, is hoping to change.
The company was launched last year by French biotech incubator Argobio Studio with Charvin as the founding CE...
Chemistry World •

Ten years on, pharma industry still testing for implausible alkyl sulfonate ester contaminants

A decade after concerns about the necessity of testing for alkyl sulfonate esters in drugs were raised1, risk assessment for this potentially mutagenic contaminant is still required by UK and European drug standard authorities.2 Other major standards bodies, such as the US and Japanese ones, do not have similar requirements for sulfonate-salt drugs.
In 2004, the European Pharmacopoeia of pharmaceutical standards introduced a requirement for sulfonate salt drug substances, stipulating that manuf...
Inside Precision Medicine •

The Slow and Winding Path to Pharmacogenomic Test Adoption

A cornerstone of precision medicine, pharmacogenomic testing allows drug treatment for a disease to be tailored to a person’s genetic makeup. Despite a large amount of research having been carried out in this area from the 1990s onward, only a few of the findings have reached the clinic in the form of tests.
High costs, unreliable data, and a lack of physician education have been cited as reasons for this slow adoption, but recent developments like improvements in data and guidelines, reductions...
Inside Precision Medicine •

In Conversation with Dina Radenkovic Turner, Gameto’s CEO and Co-Founder

Any woman who has frozen her eggs or undergone in vitro fertilization (IVF) to try and get pregnant knows how challenging and time consuming the process can be. This is something Gameto’s CEO and co-founder Dina Radenkovic Turner, MD, is trying to change.
The company’s lead candidate treatment Fertilo is currently in Phase III trials in the U.S. and already has approval in several other countries. It aims to cut the time needed for ovarian stimulation and egg collection from two weeks to a few d...
Inside Precision Medicine •

Spotlight on Women’s Reproductive Health

Women’s health research has long been underfunded. Many reproductive health conditions that impact a significant number of women, such as endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and uterine fibroids, have no treatments and understanding of these conditions is still limited.
While U.S. government funding remains low in this area at 10% or less of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) annual budget, there is increasing interest in the private sector. The number of startups in the region...
Inside Precision Medicine •

Shaping The Future of Obesity Care A Discussion with Annegret Van der Aa

Drug developers have long pursued the elusive goal of safely increasing energy expenditure to treat metabolic conditions and obesity. Leiden-based Cantoni Therapeutics is hoping to achieve this goal with its novel small molecule inhibitors of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase (NNMT), which have the potential to treat obesity and improve metabolism without loss of muscle mass.
The promise of the technology and pathway is something that attracted Annegret Van der Aa, PhD, to take up the role of CEO...
Inside Precision Medicine •

Bringing Precision Medicine Into the Home

We all have medical tests done at some point in our lives. However, busy schedules, needle phobia, embarrassment, and sometimes poor accessibility of testing facilities means that we avoid getting essential tests more often than we should.
A survey published earlier this year by Aflac, a U.S. medical insurance company, suggests as many as 90% of Americans have put off at least one medical test that could have serious health consequences if delayed, like screening for cancer.
The COVID-19 pandemi...

Additional work can be found at the below sites:

BioPharma Reporter and Outsourcing Pharma :  https://docs.google.com/docume...
Inside Precision Medicine author page: https://www.insideprecisionmed...

Selected articles 2024

Inside Precision Medicine •

AI Leading the Way to More Precise Diagnostics and Disease Risk Prediction

Already a popular topic, the launch of the large language model-based chatbot, ChatGPT, at the end of 2022 increased excitement around artificial intelligence (AI) in the media to fever pitch. This event triggered many heated debates about the technology and its numerous potential applications over the past 12 months.
There is no doubt that whatever your stance on its safety, AI has much to offer the hardworking clinician or biomedical researcher, particularly in the field of diagnostics and dis...
Inside Precision Medicine •

Beginning a New Era of Precision Alzheimer’s Therapeutics

Finding an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s disease has proved to be a long and difficult quest, but the approval of lecanemab (Leqembi®) last year for the treatment of early-stage disease was a pivotal turning point for the field.
Alzheimer’s is a disease associated with aging and impacts almost seven million people in the U.S. over the age of 65, with women and Black or Hispanic populations disproportionately affected by the condition. During the disease process of Alzheimer’s, amyloid beta...
Inside Precision Medicine •

In Conversation with Gilad Almogy

Gilad Almogy, PhD, always had a goal of producing a machine that would enable affordable, high-throughput sequencing when he founded Ultima Genomics eight years ago. The company has now reached the milestone of producing a machine that can sequence a genome for $100.
Almogy, CEO of the company, studied quantum optics and spent time developing semiconductor-based diagnostic technology before moving into the sequencing field. He has applied this knowledge to redesign high-throughput sequencing and...
Inside Precision Medicine •

Bringing Artificial Intelligence to Primary Care Medicine

Helen Albert chats with Samira Abbasgholizadeh-Rahimi, PhD, a researcher based at McGill University and the Mila-Quebec AI Institute.
Over the last few years there has been increasing hype and publicity about the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in many walks of life. In medicine, AI has the potential to improve medical outcomes for patients by speeding up various administrative and medical processes, improving accuracy of diagnoses, and reducing costs. It can also improve the working life of...
Inside Precision Medicine •

Precision Medicine for Obesity: Targeting a Multifactorial Condition

A report published in 2023, estimates that over 40% of adults in the U.S. have obesity, defined as a body mass index (BMI) of over 30 kg/m2. While not everyone in this group is unwell, there is no doubt that obesity increases the risk of associated health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, and many others.
The biotech and pharma industry has been trying to develop effective medications to treat obesity for many years. A combined treatment for...
Inside Precision Medicine •

Making Women’s Health a Priority

Hormones play a big role in our day-to-day health, and this is particularly relevant for women’s health, whether in relation to contraception, fertility, menstrual or endocrine problems, or menopause.
However, hormone levels are rarely measured by healthcare professionals and accessing data about hormone levels to make decisions about their health can be frustratingly difficult for many people. Marina Pavlovic Rivas, CEO and co-founder of Montreal-based startup Eli Health experienced this hersel...
Inside Precision Medicine •

Applying Precision Technology to Tackle Climate-Driven Infectious Diseases

The devastating impact that infectious diseases can have on the global population was well demonstrated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Fortunately, pandemics remain unusual occurrences, but research suggests that factors such as climate change may be increasing the risk of such events occurring in the future.
In a pre-pandemic study published in 2016, infectious disease researcher Jan Semenza, PhD, currently based at Umeå University in Sweden, and colleagues assessed potential drivers of infectious d...
Chemistry World •

Innovative antibacterial strategy shows promise for treating infections

A molecule that aggregates in bacteria and destroys them from the inside could offer a new way to treat infections while minimising the risk of antibacterial drug resistance.
The diarginine peptidomimetic molecule used to create this effect is essentially a small protein fragment containing two arginine amino acid units separated by a spacer group. The compound can enter bacterial cells, bind to bacterial DNA and subsequently rupture the bacterial cell membranes.
‘Once the compound enters a ba...
Inside Precision Medicine •

In Conversation with Frank Gleeson

After a 30-year wait, the last decade has seen a number of therapies for treating Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) get FDA approval, either by the normal or accelerated pathway, with many more in development.
DMD is a recessive, degenerative muscle disorder that almost exclusively affects males or people with one X chromosome because the genetic mutation that causes the condition is found on the X chromosome. Estimates vary, but it is thought to impact between one in 3,500 and one in 5,000 male...
Inside Precision Medicine •

Uncovering the Mysteries of the Gut–Brain Connection

Links between the gut and the brain were discovered many years ago, but what role does the gut microbiome play in this relationship? Recent research suggests that disruption of or abnormal activity in the gut microbiome may increase our risk for neurological disease, but whether this knowledge can be harnessed to treat, diagnose, or monitor such conditions remains to be seen.
Research into the physiology of the gut–brain connection largely began in the 19th century. In the 1840s, William Beaumon...

Preventing future pandemics through community empowerment | VolkswagenStiftung

Rocklöv didn’t come from an academic family, but says he always found mathematical and natural science fascinating. Starting out as a mathematician, he became interested in health-related research while studying for his master’s degree in mathematical statistics at Umeå University in Sweden, where he remains a visiting professor affiliated with the Department of Public Health and Clinical Medicine.Tackling the root of the problem"I feel strongly about the environment, but I was not always so awa...
Inside Precision Medicine •

Improving Precision Oncology

Cancer is one of the first areas where precision medicine was applied in a clinical setting. Today, particularly in developed countries such as the U.S. and U.K., it is becoming increasingly common to undergo precision diagnostic testing and subsequent targeted therapy depending on the tumor mutations and type of cancer.
It is widely acknowledged that targeted therapy guided by suitable diagnostics has a beneficial impact on patient outcomes and can more than double survival times, depending on...
Inside Precision Medicine •

Building a Precision Medicine Ecosystem in Africa

African populations are not well represented in genomic research, despite the enormous amount of genetic variation present in African populations. This gap makes it harder to develop fair and effective precision medicine programs that work for everyone.
Lack of funding and infrastructure in the region has made it hard to establish local programs in Africa in the past, but things are changing. Genomics and the early stages of precision medicine are now being set up in a number of countries on the...

Additional work can be found at the below sites:

BioPharma Reporter and Outsourcing Pharma :  https://docs.google.com/docume...
Inside Precision Medicine author page: https://www.insideprecisionmed...

Selected articles 2023

Labiotech.eu •

Innovative biomaterials are revolutionizing tissue regeneration

Scientists are increasingly realizing the potential of biomaterials to help with many tasks. A key area biomaterials are being used in is tissue engineering and regeneration, something several biotechs and academic labs are currently exploring.

Biomaterials are materials or substances designed to function in a biological environment, which may or may not be made of biological material. Many are inspired by natural phenomena such as how mussels stick to rocks or the glue-like secretions of the C
Inside Precision Medicine •

Broadening the Scope of Clinical Trials: The Changing Role of Real-World Evidence

The role that real-world evidence, and the data that feeds into it, play in the clinical trials arena is changing. For many years, drug developers and regulators have collected real-world data (RWD) on adverse events linked to newly approved medicines. However, this data has not played a significant role in developing or executing pre-approval clinical trials.

The situation is now changing. “There’s always been a need to look at how drugs that are coming out of clinical trials behave in the rea
BioWorld •

Bat cell line reveals unusual molecular relationship with viruses

An international team of researchers has created two bat stem cell lines that reveal an unusual number of viral sequences in bat cells compared with those of other mammals. Writing in an article posted online Feb. 21, 2023, in Cell, the scientists suggested that the unusual amount of viral genetic material found in the bat stem cells could explain why these mammals are largely unaffected by most viral infections, despite being able to transmit them.
Inside Precision Medicine •

EntrePRECISIONeur

A key goal in precision medicine is to get the right therapies to the people that need them in as effective and timely a way as possible. Better connecting patients and researchers is one way to achieve this and is something that Patrick Short, CEO of Sano Genetics in Cambridge, U.K., is passionate about.

Senior editor Helen Albert spoke to him about his journey from Wellcome Sanger Institute PhD student to CEO and about how he and his colleagues hope to improve research and accelerate precisio
Inside Precision Medicine •

Tackling Rare Diseases in 2023

The beginning of this year marks the 40th anniversary of the passing of the Orphan Drug Act. While the field of rare diseases has seen much progress both in diagnostics and the development of new therapies since then, there are still significant challenges that need to be overcome to reach the majority of the 300 million people worldwide who are affected by these conditions.

Jim Geraghty has worked in the biotech and pharma industry for many years and has followed the burgeoning orphan drug sce
Inside Precision Medicine •

Creating a Path for Gene and Cell Therapies to be Accessible to Patients

Cell and gene therapy have surprisingly long histories. Cell therapy has existed in the form of bone marrow transplant, used to treat cancers and other conditions, since the late 1950’s, although it only came to prominence with the approval of the first chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell cancer therapies (Kymriah and Yescarta) in 2017.

The first gene therapy was given to a young girl with severe combined immunodeficiency in 1990. While this and other early treatments were successful, patien
Chemistry World •

Biocatalytic process shows promise for large-scale medicinal oligonucleotide production

A ‘one pot’ process for manufacturing oligonucleotides – short 20–30 base pair DNA or RNA molecules – has been developed. Oligonucleotides are of interest as they can be used to treat a range of medical conditions, but mass producing them is still difficult.

The biocatalytic process to produce oligonucleotides was developed by Sarah Lovelock at the University of Manchester, and colleagues. It can be carried out in an aqueous solution and uses a polymerase enzyme to extend a template strand with
Chemistry World •

Click chemistry offers new, efficient process to produce unique cancer-fighting antibodies

Click chemistry has been used to create antibody-based molecules that can treat cancer. These sorts of molecules are already in trials and have shown good anti-tumour activity in human cancer cell lines.

These checkpoint inhibitory T cell engager (CiTE) molecules can engage the body’s immune system and direct cytotoxic T cells to destroy cancer cells. They include a type of bispecific antibody known as a bispecific T cell engager (BiTE) that recruits the killer T cells and a protein that helps
Inside Precision Medicine •

Cancer: The Next Microbiome Frontier

Three therapeutic regulatory approvals in less than a year signal that the promise of the human microbiome may finally be paying off. All of the approved therapies focus on treating recurrent Clostridium difficile infection, but what is next for the field? With promising oncology-related trial results from a number of researchers and companies such as MaaT Pharma and Enterome, cancer could be the next microbiome frontier to be conquered.

Initially treated as a last resort by doctors for treatin
Inside Precision Medicine •

The Digital Pathway to Widespread Precision Medicine

Digital health tools and technologies were thrust into the spotlight during the pandemic and were able to help many people get much needed medical advice and treatment when few other options were available. However, whether this boost to the industry will remain after a year of relative normalcy and a reduction in the COVID-19 threat is less clear.

“We’re just scratching the surface,” University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) chief technology officer Christian Carmody told Inside Precision
Inside Precision Medicine •

Breaking Down Barriers to Improve Women’s Health

Women’s health is chronically underfunded both in the public and private sectors and has been for many years. No one knows this better than Piraye Yurttas Beim, CEO and founder of Celmatix, a women’s health biotech company focused on improving ovarian health.

Since founding Celmatix in 2009, she has been working hard with others in the sector to raise the profile of women’s health and encourage investment in the field. Prior to starting the company, Beim was an academic researcher who completed
Inside Precision Medicine •

Breaking Down Sex and Gender Barriers in Search of Precision Medicine

Biological sex and gender have a large impact on the presentation of a disease, its progression, and how it is treated, but these factors have not received adequate research or clinical attention. Positive signs of change are emerging, but there is a lot that needs to be achieved before these benefits can reach a wide range of patients.

To achieve true precision medicine, many potential factors need to be considered. An important example of this is a person’s biological sex and gender.

“Intuit

Additional work can be found at the below sites:

Labiotech author page: https://www.labiotech.eu/autho...
Inside Precision Medicine author page: https://www.insideprecisionmed...
BioWorld author page: https://www.bioworld.com/autho...

Selected articles 2022

Labiotech.eu •

Nature’s Painters: Making Sustainable Colors with Microbes

The production of textile dyes and food colorants can have a big environmental footprint. Biotech startups are rising to the challenge by engineering bacteria, fungi, and algae to sustainably produce natural colors.

Eight years ago, University of Cambridge researcher Jim Ajioka was in Nepal helping to produce a biosensor to detect arsenic in drinking water and was shocked at how poor the water quality was in the region.

“In Kathmandu, all of the textile industry just dumps its waste straight i
Inside Precision Medicine •

Can AI Help Us Solve the Population Health Crisis?

We live in an age of wide-reaching population health problems, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity, that have a huge physical, mental, and financial cost for patients and providers. However, new forms of artificial intelligence (AI) could be the answer to solving these population health problems in an efficient and cost-effective way.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 60% of adults in the U.S. have a chronic disease and 40% have at least two. While there are
Labiotech.eu •

The Top 10 Insect-Powered Biotech Companies

Insects are often seen as pests, but many species can provide new sources of food, materials, and even ways to clean up plastic waste. Here are 10 companies in this space that we think are worth watching.

Many people think of insects simply as pests that eat crops and carry diseases such as malaria. While this is true in some cases, insects have also been an inspiration to scientists for many years. Biotechs and researchers are now applying this knowledge to create new and sustainable food sour
Chemistry World •

Edible, fluorescent silk tags could help stem tide of counterfeit medicines

A group of researchers based in the US and Korea have developed and tested an edible matrix code made of silk that can be attached to tablets or added to liquids as an anticounterfeiting measure. The tag is made of silk and is invisible to the eye, but can be picked up by specific optical filters on a smartphone camera that can pick up fluorescence.

Drug counterfeiting is an increasing problem. Every year it causes thousands of deaths and poisonings, and recent increases in online sales have on
Inside Precision Medicine •

The Human Genome: Finished in High Fidelity

Since the beginning of the human genome project in 1990, sequencing technology today has evolved beyond all recognition. No-one knows this better than Jonas Korlach, Chief Scientific Officer of PacBio and co-inventor of its revolutionary single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing technology.

At the end of March, a paper published in Science by the Telomere-to-Telomere (T2T) Consortium announced that a complete human genome had finally been finished using PacBio’s HiFi sequencing technology. Wh
Labiotech.eu •

The COVID-19 pandemic has driven RNA therapeutics into the mainstream

As messenger RNA vaccines save lives around the world, and RNA interference drugs are greenlit for rare diseases, the field of RNA therapeutics is now moving faster than ever before.

The COVID-19 pandemic proved a turning point for the biotech companies BioNTech and Moderna, which specialize in developing technology based on messenger RNA (mRNA). The rapid approval and rollout of their Covid vaccines saved hundreds of thousands of lives, generating enormous publicity and profits for the compani
Chemistry World •

Software from Cambridge crystallographic experts could save pharma industry millions

A new set of informatics tools called CSD-Particle will help academic and industry researchers understand particle behaviour in fine chemical manufacturing to try and reduce costs and make the process more efficient.

CSD-Particle is one of several software suites released by the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC), the curators of the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD), based on this valuable repository of data. Founded in 1965, the CSD contains a wide array of different crystal stru
Inside Precision Medicine •

Genomic Pathogen Surveillance in the Spotlight

The COVID-19 pandemic has really highlighted the need for effective genomic pathogen surveillance and allowed researchers around the world to hone their skills and technology. While these advances are not in doubt, whether they are maintained and used to help prevent new pandemics and fight global threats such as antimicrobial resistance remains to be seen.

Over the last decade, huge advances in technology have made genomic sequencing cheaper and more accessible, facilitating the tracking of ba
Inside Precision Medicine •

In Conversation with Renee Wegrzyn

There are few corners of the earth that were not affected by COVID-19 pandemic. Even wealthy countries like the U.S. were left woefully unprepared for the scale and the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, bringing the need for better pandemic preparedness to public attention.

Renee Wegrzyn, vice president of business development at Concentric by Ginkgo, was more prepared than most. Starting out as an applied biologist with a BSc and PhD from Georgia Institute of Technology, she has worked in the bi
Inside Precision Medicine •

Five Microbiome Companies Making Waves in 2022

Recent research demonstrating how important the human microbiome is for maintaining good health has led to the founding of many biotech companies hoping to create microbiome-based therapeutics. These five biotech companies all have candidates in clinical trials and are primed to be among the first to receive market approval.

The human microbiome, consisting of all the “friendly” non-pathogenic micro-organisms living in and on the human body, plays an important role in keeping us healthy. Resear
Chemistry World •

Bioelectric bacteria-powered sensor detects water contaminants in real time

Synthetic biology has been combined with electrical engineering to create a small bioelectric sensor that can sense water contaminants in just minutes.

The sensor is currently at the prototype stage and is not yet being produced commercially, but has already been used to detect thiosulfate, known to cause algal blooms, within 2 minutes and also the endocrine disruptor 4-hydroxytamoxifen (4-HT) within 3 minutes.

Detection methods for these environmental pollutants, and others such as nitrates a
Inside Precision Medicine •

A Conversation with Molly He, CEO and co-founder of Element Biosciences

For a long time, the world of genetic sequencing has been largely dominated by one company, namely, Illumina. Molly He helped design and drive forward some of Illumina’s best selling technology, but is now forging her own path as CEO and co-founder of sequencing start-up Element Biosciences.

Originally from China, He did a PhD. in protein biophysics and biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles. After working in protein engineering and drug design at Chiron and Sunesis Pharmaceu

Additional work can be found at the below sites:

Labiotech author page: https://www.labiotech.eu/autho... 
Inside Precision Medicine author page: https://www.insideprecisionmed...
BioWorld author page: https://www.bioworld.com/autho...

Selected articles 2021

Labiotech.eu •

Biotech Drives the Water Purification Industry Towards a Circular Economy

Water purification has never been more important, but antiquated methods and a lack of innovation have held the sector back. Biotechnology proposes solutions that bring us one step closer to a true circular economy.

Rising populations and pollution levels mean that water purification is now more crucial than ever before. However, much of the industry is still using water treatment methods that originated over 100 years ago.

“Coming from biotechnology, I’m really surprised about how little inno
Forbes •

Gene Editing Technique Halts Premature Aging In Mice, Could It Help Children With Rare Disease?

A specialized gene editing technique that allows very small and precise changes to be made to the genetic code can halt a disease that causes premature aging in a mouse model and double the lifespan of the treated animals.

The hope is that this finding can be replicated in people with the same condition — a genetic disease called progeria — which currently has no cure. Children who develop the disease normally die around the age of 15 years.

Over the last decade, a new technique for editing ge
Inside Precision Medicine •

What Can We Expect From The Second Wave of Coronavirus Vaccines?

Almost a year from the start of the global pandemic, there is hope on the horizon with several vaccines already approved and in the process of being rolled out. But the sheer scale of the need means more options are needed. What can we expect in the next wave of vaccines and are more approvals on the near horizon?

On the week that Biden officially takes over from Trump in the White House he has inherited a number of big challenges from his predecessor. One urgent and overriding problem is how t
Forbes •

Sensor Shows Promise For Continuous Heart And Lung Health Tracking

A small, liquid-filled sensor can continuously and accurately measure heart and lung sounds, detecting cardiac problems or shortness of breath at an early stage, something which could warn heart failure patients of health deterioration and also help pick up early signs of infections such as Covid-19.

Many of us own smart watches or fitness trackers, a large number of which now include heart rate monitors. However, while their accuracy has improved, they offer fairly limited information about he
Inside Precision Medicine •

Three Million African Genomes: A New Project for A New Generation

Much has been achieved since the sequencing of the human genome project, but we are still only at the beginning of implementing truly personalized medicine. Could the proposed Three Million African Genomes project take us closer to the goal of inclusive, accurate genetic risk prediction that includes everyone regardless of their genetic ancestry?

This month is the 20th anniversary of the first publication of the draft human genome sequence. In the last two decades, genetics has advanced dramati
Inside Precision Medicine •

Genomic Analysis Reveals Tumor-Like Nature of Human Placenta

An in-depth investigation into the genetics of the placenta reveals its tumor-like nature and shows how it may help normalize genetic mutations in the fetus that would otherwise have resulted in miscarriage.

The research team, led by the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Sanger Institute, think that as the fetus divides away from the placenta, it uses it as a place to deposit genetic defects that would otherwise cause health problems.

It has been known for some time that the tissue that
Inside Precision Medicine •

Will COVID-19 mRNA Advances Help Progress Cancer Vaccines To the Clinic?

Over the last year mRNA vaccine development to combat COVID-19 has happened extremely quickly, but whether these scientific advances can have a positive impact on the development of cancer vaccines remains to be seen.

At the beginning of 2020, no mRNA drugs or vaccines were on the market. Since the beginning of the pandemic, two mRNA vaccines have been approved in the U.S. and in multiple other countries—those developed by BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna—and another candidate, that developed by Ger
Inside Precision Medicine •

Can COVID-19 Lessons Help Manage Chronic Health Conditions ‘Tsunami’?

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted many aspects of healthcare, but two leaders in the cardiovascular field believe lessons learned over the last year can help the U.S. deal with a future ‘tsunami’ of chronic health conditions, both those caused by the virus and from other causes.

Even before the pandemic, the U.S. has seen a downturn in life expectancy over the last few years. “This reversal is chiefly due to increases in drug overdose and suicide, but deaths from cardiovascular disease, parti
Inside Precision Medicine •

Polygenic Risk Scores Taking Hold in the Clinic

Polygenic risk scores (PRS) have advanced enormously in recent years and are now well on their way to becoming an established part of modern medicine. But there are still some issues such as accuracy and applicability that need to be solved before they can truly become mainstream.

With increasingly sophisticated genetic technology at their fingertips, scientists have developed correspondingly sophisticated genetic tests. Searching for single monogenic mutations used to be the norm, but it’s now
Labiotech.eu •

Biomaterials Are Making the Building Industry More Sustainable

There is a growing awareness of the waste and pollution caused by the building industry. New biomaterials are being created using waste products and microbes to solve these ecological problems.

“Using biological materials in buildings isn’t a new concept – we’ve built wooden structures for thousands of years,” said Gavin McIntyre, co-founder and Director of Business Development at Ecovative Design, a US-based biotech making materials with mycelium — part of the root system of mushrooms.

Increa
Inside Precision Medicine •

COVID-19 Testing Moves Towards Pooled and Rapid At-Home Tests

As the COVID-19 pandemic enters a new phase in the U.S., the way testing is being used is also changing and moving more towards a pooled and serial rapid test model with a view to reducing costs and minimizing community transmission.

During 2020, tests for SARS-CoV-2 had to develop as the pandemic continued. Initially focusing on accurate but time-consuming individual RT-PCR tests, there were problems with capacity, equipment availability, and the level of expertise required to carry out the te
Photo by Pok Rie on Pexels
Biodesigned •

Prophet in the Sewer — Biodesigned

Environmental engineer Smruthi Karthikeyan started her postdoc with Rob Knight at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) in March 2020 only days before the state implemented its first Covid lockdown.

“I haven’t met most of my colleagues,” she told me.

Starting a new job during a pandemic is not ideal, but Karthikeyan was soon offered an unexpected opportunity. “I was mostly working on computational stuff, and then one day, my principal investigator called me saying, ‘You're an environme
Inside Precision Medicine •

Sussing Out COVID-19 Severity

A striking feature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that has caused so much havoc around the world over the last year is how variable a response it elicits from those it infects, with some not even expressing symptoms and others becoming seriously ill. Could variation in our genetics be the answer to these differences?

With more than 150 million cases and 3 million deaths reported across the globe, COVID-19 remains a massive public health problem, despite the rapid rollout of vaccination campaigns in co
Labiotech.eu •

How Blockchain Companies Are Helping Us Protect Our Genomic Data

Using genomic data and the blockchain network, it is now possible to send anonymous genetic information around the world in the blink of an eye. Meet the companies that want to help us protect and control our own genetic data.

As the cost of sequencing an individual genome falls and more people have access to their genomic data, a question has arisen about data ownership. Namely, who owns or should own the data that is generated by genetic tests? While this is a debated question, many feel stro
Labiotech.eu •

What the EU's Single-Use Plastics Ban Means for the Bioplastics Industry

A European directive banning a range of single-use plastics came into law this month. How are the new regulations impacting industrial biotech companies developing bioplastics?

In an attempt to reduce staggeringly high levels of plastic pollution seen around the world, particularly in marine environments, the 27 EU member states and Norway agreed in 2019 to restrict ‘single-use plastics’ from being produced and sold in the EU.

The countries were given two years to implement the new regulations
Inside Precision Medicine •

From Hype to Utility

Artificial intelligence (AI) was perhaps overhyped when it was first applied for improving diagnostics, clinical decision support, and therapeutic target identification. Its reputation as a game-changer was likely sullied by the promise—and subsequent lack of meaningful results—of IBM’s Watson. Nevertheless, AI today is used in myriad ways to improve diagnostic and therapeutic pathways for patients and its uses are expanding. But can it really help to achieve widespread application of precision
Labiotech.eu •

Why We Desperately Need to Develop New Antifungals

While serious fungal infections are rare, there is a limited number of approved drugs to treat them, and they may not always work due to the rise of antimicrobial resistance. Despite the challenges, researchers are starting to add new weapons to the arsenal to protect us against these microscopic invaders.

Developing effective antifungals is a big challenge for science. This is because fungi cells are more closely related to human cells than other microbes such as bacteria. Meaning that compoun
Inside Precision Medicine •

DNA Vaccines: The Next Stage in the Vaccine Revolution?

Over the last two years, there has been an unprecedented frenzy to develop new vaccines due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but DNA vaccines have rather stood in the shadow of their mRNA cousins. With the first DNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 now approved in India, what’s next in this field and can these vaccines compete with others on the market?

The first human DNA vaccine, developed by Zydus Cadila, received market approval in India in August for protection against COVID-19. Although several veteri
Inside Precision Medicine •

Precision Through Diversity

Human genetics has advanced enormously over the last twenty years, but it is still being held back by diversity issues. Solving these problems is essential if we are ever to reach true precision medicine for all.

Since the completion of the human genome project 20 years ago, the field has changed beyond all recognition. It is now possible to sequence a genome for under $1,000—compared with the $2.7B cost of the original project—and in less than a week. Estimates suggest this will soon be even q
New Scientist •

Investigation fails to replicate most cancer biology lab findings

The reliability of early-stage cancer biology research is called into question by an investigation that concludes more than half of experimental results can’t be replicated by independent scientists

Lab-based cancer research isn’t always easy to replicate, according to a new investigation

An eight-year-long investigation into the reliability of preclinical cancer biology research has found that fewer than half of the results published in 23 highly cited papers could be successfully reproduced.
Inside Precision Medicine •

A New Generation of CRISPR Technology

Janice Chen is very inspiring. At the age of 30, she has not only completed a PhD with Nobel prize winner Jennifer Doudna at the University of California, Berkeley, but she has also helped co-found her own successful biotech company.

Jumping straight from finishing her PhD in 2018 to co-founding Mammoth Biosciences with Doudna, lab mate Lucas Harrington, now CSO, and Trevor Martin, now CEO, Chen is CTO of the company.

Mammoth recently announced it had raised $195 million in financing, bringing

Additional work can be found at the below sites:

Inside Precision Medicine author page: https://www.insideprecisionmed...
Labiotech author page: https://www.labiotech.eu/autho...
Forbes author page: https://www.forbes.com/sites/h...

Selected articles 2020

Labiotech.eu •

How to Spot a Biotech Winner: Investment Lessons from Sofinnova

Making one biotech a success is hard enough, but correctly predicting multiple winners is the bread and butter of Antoine Papiernik, Managing Partner of Sofinnova Partners, one of the biggest and most prosperous life science venture capital investors in Europe.

Papiernik began his career in corporate finance. In 1995, he was working in investment in Prague for the French financial organization CDC (Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations). He was asked to come back to France to work on a life scienc
Labiotech.eu •

10 Scientists Behind Modern Biotech You Probably Don't Know

The modern biotech industry is a multi-million euro business, but who are the Europeans behind the science that made the industry what it is today? Here are 10 scientists, engineers and healthcare professionals we think you should know about.

Over the last 25 years, biotech has become a burgeoning worldwide industry. It only became the success it is today on the back of excellent science. While some companies and leaders grab the limelight, as well as a few researchers, often names get lost in
Labiotech.eu •

Why European Biotechs Should Look to China for Investment

Traditionally European biotechs have looked to the US for additional investment, but changes in the law and significant economic success in the country in recent years means that new opportunities are opening up in China that are ripe for exploitation.

China has a massive population and a correspondingly large patient group. Homegrown science is pretty advanced in some areas, such as CRISPR gene therapy and development of CAR-T cell therapies for cancer. However, drug development in China lags
Labiotech.eu •

Why Women’s Health Can Be a Good Investment

Since the Hormone Replacement Therapy market was destroyed almost overnight in 2002 after side effects were reported by researchers, there has been a lot of caution about investing in companies with a focus on women’s health. Mary Kerr, CEO of KaNDy Therapeutics and NeRRe Therapeutics, knows this only too well, but has not let it deter her in her quest to bring a treatment for symptoms of the menopause to the market.

Kerr began her career in the UK big pharma company GSK. She held a range of di
Labiotech.eu •

Riding the Wave of Cambridge Entrepreneurship

The University of Cambridge is world-famous, but unlike its US equivalent, the city isn’t as well known for its startup culture. Jason Mellad, CEO of StartCodon — a new accelerator based there — believes the area is a great place to set up a new biotech.

“When I arrived in 2004, there were several people, particularly from the Cambridge Angels and some of the early programs like iTeams, thinking about how entrepreneurship should be something that’s encouraged and I was fortunate enough to ride
Science|Business •

Balancing the scales in healthcare: winners and losers from COVID-19

The COVID-19, pandemic has brought the world to its knees in a way that has not been seen in most people’s lifetimes.

In addition to an enormous impact on human health in many countries, restrictions imposed in an attempt to control the virus and protect vulnerable populations are having far reaching impacts across the global economy.

Biotech and pharma companies in Europe and elsewhere have rushed to support work on developing new diagnostic tests, treatments and vaccines for the virus. But w
Labiotech.eu •

Could Cell Therapy Target the Symptoms of Severe Covid-19?

The excessive inflammatory response seen in the most serious cases of Covid-19, along with shortages of ventilators, has caused a healthcare crisis in many countries around the world. Could cell therapy provide an answer to this dilemma?

Most people who become infected with Covid-19 experience symptoms such as a dry cough and mild fever, and recover without medical care. But around 14% develop more severe symptoms including pneumonia and shortness of breath.

Approximately 5% of patients with s
Labiotech.eu •

The Three Obstacles Stopping Cell Therapy Becoming Mainstream

While there are now more cell therapies on offer than ever before, there are obstacles still preventing them from becoming widely used.

Cell therapy holds enormous promise for treating many different diseases. However, the field has also seen controversy regarding therapies using embryonic stem cells, as well as problematic fraud cases.

Some forms of cell therapy have been around since the 1950s, such as hematopoietic stem cell transplantation to treat certain types of cancer. While the potent
Inside Precision Medicine •

3D Facial Imaging Tool Can Help Diagnose Genetic Diseases

A computer-based facial analysis tool and 3D image database could help children with genetic conditions to get a quicker and more accurate diagnosis, suggests joint U.S. and Canadian research.



Many genetic conditions are rare and an accurate diagnosis can often take years. Despite significant genetic advances over the last 20 years, people in many countries have limited access to medical genetic testing and simpler and more efficient tools are needed to aid clinical diagnosis for these ch...
British Medical Journal •

What will it take for Germany to embrace digital health?

Germans are not fast adopters of digital technology. With a fondness for using cash and low uptake of social media compared with most countries, they fiercely guard their right to control how personal information, including health records, is shared.1 When the independent foundation Bertelsmann Stiftung compiled an index measuring 17 countries’ progress in healthcare digitisation in 2019, Germany ranked second from the bottom (the UK came sixth).2

But 2020 is proving a time of change. Jörg Deba
New Scientist •

Earphone cameras watch your facial expressions and read your lips

A wearable device consisting of two mini-cameras mounted on earphones can recognise your facial expressions and read your lips, even if your mouth is covered.

The tool – called C-Face – was developed by Cheng Zhang at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and his colleagues. It looks at the sides of the wearer’s head and uses machine learning to accurately visualise facial expressions by analysing small changes in cheek contour lines.

“With previous technology to reconstruct facial expressio
Labiotech.eu •

Top 10 Companies Combining AI and Drug Discovery in Europe

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence over the last decade have the potential to revolutionize how drugs are developed. These are the top 10 companies in Europe that are working to make AI drug discovery a reality.

Drug development is a slow and increasingly expensive process. Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to make the drug development process quicker, cheaper and more efficient. This technology can make scanning vast libraries of chemical compounds that might be able to tre
Forbes •

Lab Grown Cartilage-Bone Grafts Help Rebuild Damaged Joints

Researchers have successfully grown cartilage-bone grafts in the lab that can be used to repair damaged joints such as the jaw.

Although reconstructive surgery is available to treat many joint injuries, it can be imprecise and those who experience such injuries often have to have multiple surgeries and suffer long-term pain and discomfort as a result.

The temporomandibular joint in the jaw is particularly complex to repair and more precise and personalized methods of doing this are needed. If
Labiotech.eu •

Gene Drives: A Controversial Tool to Fight Malaria

The advent of CRISPR gene editing has enabled the creation of gene drives, a technology that can increase the odds of a certain gene being inherited. While the technology could help us tackle malaria and control invasive species, the scientific community is divided on whether it is ethical.

The possibility of creating gene drives was introduced into the scientific community in 2003 by Austin Burt, a professor at Imperial College London. Burt was studying ‘selfish genes’ that can copy themselves
Labiotech.eu •

GMO Regulations in Europe Are "Not Fit for Purpose"

The controversial decision by the European courts in 2018 to regulate gene-edited organisms as GMOs has had a damaging effect on biotech companies working in this area.

The current GMO regulations were established in Europe in 2001 and were designed to strictly regulate the introduction of DNA from other species into animals and plants. These regulations do not cover mutagenesis techniques, such as exposure to radiation, where mutations are artificially induced without inserting foreign DNA.

I

Additional work can be found at the below sites:

Labiotech author page: https://www.labiotech.eu/autho...

Forbes author page: https://www.forbes.com/sites/h...

Inside Precision Medicine author page: https://www.insideprecisionmed...

Selected articles: Earlier work

Portland Press •

Natural inspiration

Researchers, engineers and designers have long been inspired by the natural world and have applied their observations to their work, designing materials and machines that imitate properties of biological organisms and systems. A famous early example of such ‘biomimicry’ was the development of Velcro by the engineer George de Mestral. During a walk in the countryside in 1941, he became curious about whether the sticky properties of Burdock seeds (otherwise known as ‘burrs’) could be replicated. A...
Labiotech.eu •

Sugar-Munching Microbes Put the ‘Eco’ into the Dyeing Industry

The commercial dyeing industry is not known for being eco-friendly, which is something that PILI – a synbio startup based in France – is hoping to address with their color producing microbes. Philip chatted with its CEO, Jeremie Blache, to find out more about the company, its recent successful fundraising round and how its technology could revolutionize the textile industry. The first synthetic color, mauveine (a shade of purple), was produced by accident in 1856 using petrochemical techniques....
Labiotech.eu •

How to Close a €3.9B Acquisition Deal for Your Biotech Company

Ablynx, one of the big giants in the European biotech arena, closed the final stages of its €3.9B acquisition deal with Sanofi earlier this month, after details were announced in January. Edwin Moses, CEO of Ablynx, shared the company’s success story with attendees at our recent Refresh Meetup in Brussels. The technology behind Ablynx’s success was discovered by Professor Raymond Hamers (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) in the 1990s. He noticed that the immune system of camelids, such as camels, llam...
Labiotech.eu •

Spider Silk Shows Promise in Vaccine Field

Swiss and German scientists have engineered spider-silk microparticles that can be used to protect a vaccine particle, allow it to enter immune cells and trigger T-cell immunity without toxic effects.

The team, partnered by AMSilk — the German biotech behind Adidas’ biodegradable shoes, hopes their technique will allow more targeted and stable vaccines against difficult targets like cancer and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, which require a T-cell response.

When designing vaccines, i
Labiotech.eu •

Plastic Type Key to Eco-Friendly Breakdown by Soil Microbes

Swiss research shows that bacteria and fungi in the soil are able to comprehensively break down some types of plastic, but not others.Thin plastic ‘mulch’ films are commonly used by farmers on fields to prevent weeds, but it is often extremely difficult to collect these films after they have been used.“While plastic that disintegrates into small pieces…may no longer be visible to the eye, it may persist in the environment in the form of these small pieces for hundreds of years!” Michael Sander,...
Labiotech.eu •

Producing Cost-Effective and Eco-Friendly Biofuel With Seawater

UK researchers have developed a technique for making bioethanol from seawater, which they hope will make production of the biofuel cheaper and more environmentally friendly than current methods.At present, bioethanol production uses very large amounts of freshwater – 1000-10,000 liters water per 1 liter bioethanol. They also require large amounts of plant biomass to produce, which is expensive and takes up land that could be used to grow food. “There are so many obstacles facing this approach, m...
Labiotech.eu •

Why Being in a New Field From the Start Can Pay Off in the Long Run

The field of immuno-oncology has expanded out of all recognition over the last few years. Having co-founded one of the first cancer immunotherapy biotechs — Immatics — CEO Harpreet Singh has seen it all happen. He plans to take advantage of the company’s head start to tackle solid tumors with its T-cell redirecting therapies. Singh co-founded Immatics in 2000 with two fellow academics, Toni Weinschenk and Niels Emmerich, while completing a PhD in immunology at the University of Tübingen in Germa...
Labiotech.eu •

Industry Perspectives: Women in Biotech 2019

Women are underrepresented in biotech leadership roles in Europe, but things are slowly improving. We spoke to five senior women from the industry who told us their stories.At least half of life sciences and medical students across Europe are women. In the biotech and pharma industry, this statistic is similar in entry level jobs, but drops off dramatically in more senior positions. In 2018, less than 10% of CEOs in the industry were female. While things are getting better, there is still a long...
Labiotech.eu •

How BioNTech Navigates the Biotech Fundraising Maze

BioNTech is on a mission to individualize cancer therapy by developing a range of different innovative therapies, a task that can be a rollercoaster ride, according to its Chief Business and Commercial Officer Sean Marett.

It’s been an interesting year for the German biotech. In July the company raised one of the biggest ever European biotech fundraising rounds with its €290M Series B. However, poor market conditions in the US led to its Nasdaq IPO, which was initially predicted to raise up to

Earlier work for Labiotech, The Biochemist, medWire News and COSMOS: https://helenlalbertportfolio....
Inside Precision Medicine author page: https://www.insideprecisionmed...