Novartis’ big push into cell and gene therapy hasn’t been the smoothest of rides, with a data manipulation scandal hamstringing Zolgensma and manufacturing concerns hurting CAR-T cancer therapy Kymriah. Could a new European facility help turn around the latter’s production bottleneck? Novartis last week opened its newest cell and gene therapy facility in Stein, Switzerland, giving the
Source REUTERS Eleven drugmakers led by Pfizer and Novartis have set aside a combined $2 billion to invest in gene therapy manufacturing since 2018, according to a Reuters analysis, in a drive to better control production of the world’s priciest medicines. The full scope of Novartis’ $500 million plan, revealed to Reuters in an interview
Fake news works at a cognitive level to shape our perceptions and drive our decisions Fake news grabs our attention, produces false memories and appeals to our emotions “Fake news” is a relatively new term, yet it’s now seen as one of the greatest threats to democracy and free debate. In the Netflix documentary The Great
Artificial neurons on silicon chips that behave just like the real thing have been invented by scientists of the University of Bath and researchers from the Universities of Bristol, Zurich and Auckland – a first-of-its-kind achievement with enormous scope for medical devices to cure chronic diseases, such as heart failure, Alzheimer’s, and other diseases of
An international team led by scientists from Memorial Sloan Kettering has shown for the first time that foods containing lactose, a sugar that’s naturally found in milk and dairy products, help Enterococcus thrive in the gut, at least in mice. Infections with the Enterococcus bacterium are a major threat in healthcare settings. They can lead to inflammation
Study in Nature Sheds New Light on Heart Attack Treatment Controversy Stem cell therapy helps hearts recover from a heart attack, although not for the biological reasons originally proposed two decades ago that today are the basis of ongoing clinical trials. This is the conclusion of a Nov. 27 study in Nature that shows an entirely different
Creating an object from a scratch: not just an illusion, but a reality. Nowadays, there is a way to turn your ideas into three-dimensional objects and here, the magic word is 3D printing. This technique, also called additive manufacturing, consists of successive layer-by-layer depositions of material which, all together, form the desired object. Contrary to conventional
Source Trends in Molecular Medicine Mitochondria and lysosomes are pivotal organelles for cellular metabolism and also have important roles as signaling platforms. Many diseases are characterized by impaired mitochondrial or lysosomal function. These are often referred to as ‘mitochondrial diseases’, which have a primary cause in mitochondria, or as lysosomal storage diseases. Although each specific
Multinozzle printer can switch between multiple inks up to 50 times per second 3D printers are revolutionizing manufacturing by allowing users to create any physical shape they can imagine on-demand. However, most commercial printers are only able to build objects from a single material at a time and inkjet printers that are capable of multimaterial
High-throughput synthetic biology approach reveals hidden AAV features and could help fast-track future gene therapies Adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) have become the go-to vehicle for delivering therapeutic gene cargo to target tissues for the wave of gene therapies that are in development in academic and biotechnology laboratories. However, natural AAVs do not specifically target diseased cells
