More than 75 industry executives and experts gazed into the crystal ball and shared with Scrip their predictions around transformative technologies. Perhaps unsurprisingly, AI was the dominant theme – but gene editing, cell therapies and new targeting modalities were also among the highlights.

Less than two years after its $101m series A round, Seismic’s machine-learning powered IMPACT platform for biologics drug discovery yielded two clinical trial-ready assets worthy of a $121m series B.

In the second part of In Vivo's series on mRNA manufacturing, we look at the technology behind the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines. Experts in the field are working on a variety of improvements that will enable quicker, cheaper, surer development and production of what could turn out to be a wide array of vaccines and therapeutics to be churned out by emerging mRNA platforms.

A buyout of Seagen would boost Merck & Co’s goal of becoming the dominant player in oncology by 2025, but the deal is said to be far from done.