Weekly round-up: Alys breaks new ground with first Phase 2a trial of a genetic medicine program in dermatology

Alys Pharmaceuticals, Inc., an immuno-dermatology focused company, on Tuesday announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Health Canada have cleared the Investigational New Drug (IND) / Clinical Trial Application (CTA) for the study of ALY-101 in patients suffering from Alopecia Areata (AA).  Akribion Therapeutics exits from stealth with €8m seed financing to […]

Hot topic: Doubts over UK’s growth potential as AstraZeneca axes vaccine plant

Just a week after science minister Lord Vallance was appointed the “Oxford-Cambridge Innovation Champion”, the gloss has well and truly disappeared from the government’s attempts to bolster its life sciences credentials. Just as the Labour government was looking for a good news story to highlight the UK’s potential as a site for international investment, the […]

Weekly round-up: Novo Nordisk Foundation announces funding milestone, breakthrough AI results revealed

Our clients finished off January on a positive note, with some great investment news from Commit, a fundraising milestone from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, and breakthrough AI results from BrightHeart. Novo Nordisk Foundation granted DKK 10 billion (€1.35 billion) to benefit people and the planet in milestone year Following its 100th anniversary in 2024, the […]

Hot topic: AI becomes “must have” technology for life sciences firms as prices fall

AI chatbots like ChatGPT were considered to be disruptive technologies when they were unveiled shortly after the upheaval of the pandemic.  But what happens when the disruptor is disrupted? The announcement of the cut-price competitor DeepSeek from China’s Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co. Ltd shows how even AI giants like Nvidia and OpenAI are themselves […]

Hot topic: Should Pharma be looking east for new assets?

“Go west, young man!”   Such was the famous advice of Horace Greeley, founder and editor of the (long defunct) New York Tribune, to an acquaintance, Josiah B. Grinnell, in the mid-19th century.  Countless individuals, businesses, and industries have since followed that advice – and gone on to strike gold.  But when it comes to where […]