Untapped market opportunities for treating and possibly curing underserved diseases have spurred an active deal-making environment in regenerative medicine, according to a new report from Datamonitor Healthcare.

This week's appointment roundup includes senior appointments by Promethera, HealthTell, Alzheon and Gilead Nordic with Baxter International, Therachon and Arena Pharmaceuticals making board appointments.

Synthetic biology offers opportunity across many industries, but the ultimate prize may be health care. The millions of dollars investors have poured into companies developing CAR-T cell therapies and gene editing technologies points to growing confidence in the power of gene manipulation to generate novel, approvable therapeutics, even if for now these are just the early steps toward creating fully synthetic organisms.

Intrexon’s acquisitions since mid-2014 have given it a shot at solving some high-profile challenges, and have attracted mainstream pharmaceutical partners.