Innovation

In this one-off podcast, reporter Barnaby Pickering speaks Jérôme Marzinski and Dr Christian Coviello, the CEO and CTO, respectively, of OxSonics, a UK-based start-up which is working on an ultrasound-based technology that has been designed to enhance the potency of oncological drugs.

The FDA Modernization Act 2.0 should make it easier for companies to gain regulatory authorization using non-traditional testing methods, like organs-on-a-chip. But biopharma will need to make the leap into technology to help build knowledge and data if the drug development world is to move away from animal testing entirely. 

Messenger RNA (mRNA) prophylactic vaccines have made major breakthroughs in 2020 and 2021 with both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines gaining approval in more than 150 countries. These mRNA COVID vaccines have been developed much faster and with superior clinical profiles when compared to other more conventional modalities.

hVIVO, a specialist contract research organization, performs human challenge trials, helping pharma companies develop vaccines with greater efficiency. Chief scientific officer Andrew Catchpole recently spoke with In Vivo about what it takes to perform an effective human challenge study, how they keep study participants safe, and how the company is helping address the ongoing scourge of malaria.  

Will CAR-NK cell therapies overshadow traditional CAR-T options for the treatment of some cancers? While preliminary data for CAR-NKs point to enhanced safety and solid tumor penetration, oncologists and executives discuss the pros and cons of these two approaches to cell therapy. 

Pharmaceutical cold chain products are growing in number, complexity and reach. While life sciences organizations and their partners have been steadily investing in capabilities to effectively manufacture and distribute them, scaling them at the speed of innovation in an era of increasing regulatory and environmental requirements is more and more challenging.

French-founded biotech Smart Immune has made significant headway in stimulating the thymus, a small gland with a huge immunological impact which rarely finds itself as a key clinical target. The company is now investigating the impact that two of its ProTcell products in patients with severe combined immunodeficiency and leukemia could have.

Biopharma Excellence recently convened three experts in the world of rare disease in a roundtable to discuss the emerging approaches to data collection when patient populations are very small. Their discussion has been summarized for In Vivo.

After securing US orphan designation for an artificial intelligence-assisted therapeutic, Insilico's co-CEO Feng Ren sits down for a wide-ranging interview in which he discusses why AI drug discovery is more predictable, efficient and cost-effective than the conventional bench-to-bed model. AI's limitations and validations, why the industry should get excited about algorithms, data sets and deep learning are other topics to consider in this fast-growing field. 

In the first part of this two-part series, In Vivo discussed the potential for organs on chips to revolutionize drug development. However, great challenges wait for developers of the technology.

Astellas’ Mike Luther sees 2023 as a year of growing assets and creating partnerships. The global head of search and evaluation business development told In Vivo about the company's focus on gene and cell therapy and what he thinks makes for a successful business deal.

In December 2022, Nimbus Inc. completed one of the largest single-asset deals in the history of biotech, selling their TYK2 inhibitor program NDI-034858 for an up-front payment of $4bn and up to $2bn in additional milestone payments. What was it like to close a deal of that magnitude? What’s next for Nimbus? The company‘s CEO, Jeb Keiper, reflected on these questions in a recent interview with In Vivo.