The Cystic Fibrosis association pushes research to the next level
Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a life-threatening disease, for which there is currently no treatment. There are some drugs on the market that, in certain cases, can alleviate the symptoms. In this article, we give a brief overview of the newest developments within this field and show how patient organizations can make a difference. CF is […]
Growing organs in the lab: science or science fiction?
Catherine Verfaillie was very close to being an Olympic athlete in heptathlon, but due to a major knee injury, she had to switch from studying physical education to medicine in her first year of university. It was a blessing in disguise, because Verfaillie is now head of the Stem Cell Institute at KU Leuven (SCIL). […]
Rewind Therapeutics secures funding for Multiple Sclerosis research
Rewind Therapeutics, a privately held Belgian biotech company, completed a € 15.2 million Series A financing to develop novel re-myelinating therapies for patients suffering from Multiple Sclerosis and other myelin-related diseases. The round was led by life science investors Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF), Merck Ventures BV (MV) and Participatiemaatschappij Vlaanderen (PMV), together with KU […]
reMYND brings in Novo Nordisk to develop diabetes therapy
reMYND entered into a license agreement to further develop novel treatments improving beta-cell health and insulin signalling with Novo Nordisk. The companies have entered into a license agreement to further develop reMYND’s ReS39 therapeutic program of diabetes. This program holds also promise for NASH and the metabolic syndrome. reMYND’s lead diabetes program ReS39 sustains and […]
Celyad: CAR-T cells with natural killer skills fight cancer
Celyad, based in Mont-Saint-Guibert (Belgium), was originally established in 2004 as a company active in regenerative cell therapy. However, two years ago, Celyad decided to move into immuno-oncology. The company has licensed technology from Dartmouth College in the US that is based on CAR T cells expressing an NK cell receptor. A phase I clinical […]
New cures for hereditary diseases around the corner?
Hereditary diseases are caused by mutations or deletions in (single) genes that lead to either dysfunctional or inadequate levels of proteins. RNA- or DNA-mediated gene supplementation and gene editing are next-generation disease-modifying therapies for such diseases. Gene supplementation/gene editing allows the root of a hereditary defect to be tackled in a single corrective action with […]
Vaccinating against cancer with dendritic cells
Founded as a spin-off from the French Blood Bank, PDC*line Pharma is focused on developing immunotherapeutic vaccines. These vaccines contain their proprietary and unique plasmacytoid dendritic cell (PDC) line, whose remarkable characteristics make it excellently suited for immunotherapy. By boosting the immune system with their vaccine in combination with checkpoint inhibitors, PDC*line Pharma aims to help the currently large group of non-responders to immunotherapy.
AI improves patient care
Curing and caring for patients is a comprehensive process that requires research to discover new drugs, clinical trials to test the safety and efficacy of those drugs, and coaching and mentoring to ensure patient engagement and the creation of healthier lifestyles. At each of these steps, there is an overwhelming amount of data—more than any […]
Diagnosed with lung cancer
A patient diagnosed with lung cancer should brace for the worst. Prognosis is often very disappointing. While in many cancers early diagnosis and treatment is key, lung cancer patients experience regular relapses, even when diagnosed early. Most of the time this can be controlled with chemotherapy, albeit temporarily. After that, immunotherapy offers some hope, but […]
Very promising cancer treatment: RNAi immunotherapy
RXi Pharmaceuticals was co-founded by Craig Mello, PhD, the co-recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the discovery of RNA interference (RNAi). To advance the use of RNAi into therapeutics, RXi has developed a novel and proprietary self-delivering RNAi platform, termed sd-rxRNA®, that has many advantages over its competitors in the RNAi space. […]
Dendritic cells boosted with mRNA form promising cancer immunotherapy
With its expertise in mRNA production and knowledge of the biology of dendritic cells, eTheRNA has developed TriMix, a new mRNA technology platform. TriMix consists of a cocktail of three mRNAs, which pushes dendritic cells beyond their limits and helps them raise an immune response against cancer antigens. With TriMix, eTheRNA believes it has developed […]
IDO 1: a promising new target for immunotherapy
iTeos Therapeutics started in 2012 as a spin-off from the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research (LICR), one of the top three cancer institutes in the world, and the UCL. In 2014, they licensed rights to pre-clinical compounds targeting IDO1 and TDO2 to Pfizer, providing the company with the necessary resources to expand from 7 to […]
Immunotherapy: a paradigm shift in cancer treatment
An excerpt from the BioVox White paper on Cancer Immunotherapy.
Using bacteria to fight obesity and diabetes
Using the gut bacterium Akkermansia muciniphila to treat obese and diabetic patients is now one step closer to becoming a reality, thanks to the work of a group of researchers led by Patrice Cani from the UCL and Willem de Vos from Wageningen University. By using a new cultivation medium and applying pasteurization, these scientists […]
Confo Therapeutics: Drugging the Undruggable
Llama single-domain antibodies have found yet another application, one that Confo Therapeutics is fully exploiting. Ablynx is developing Nanobodies®, AgroSavfe focuses on Agrobodies®, and Confo will now use its Confobodies® to lock G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) into position. This enables the company to screen for small molecules targeting specific GPCR conformations, a most innovative approach […]