Biotech
Immunotherapy may help some patients with treatment-resistant depression, early trial results suggest. The study looked at people with moderate to severe depression who had not responded well to standard antidepressants. About one in three people with depression do not get better with the main medical treatments available, which are based on targeting chemicals [...]
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has opened consultation on a rare disease pathway aimed at speeding therapies to patients and asking industry to help shape the final framework. The draft sets out a technology-agnostic regulatory framework, meaning it is intended to work across different therapy types, to address scientific, evidence and commercial [...]
Immune cells trained by scientists may help tackle resistant infections by boosting the body’s own defences instead of relying on new antibiotics. The approach is being explored as antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, continues to reduce the effectiveness of existing treatments. AMR happens when bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites no longer respond to medicines, making infections [...]
A living 'tumour-on-chip' is being developed to study glioblastoma and how drugs might best reach the aggressive brain cancer. The system is designed to mimic key features of the human brain inside a small laboratory device. Researchers hope it could offer fresh insight into how glioblastoma tumours grow and provide a more human-relevant way to [...]
A daily pill could help people keep weight off after stopping weight-loss jabs, according to new research. Trials found that patients given the tablet, called orforglipron, every day for a year avoided regaining much of the weight they had lost after coming off GLP-1 injections. The drug is already available in the US and could [...]
Infinitopes, a biotechnology company developing novel and precision immunotherapy, has announced the appointment of Jo Brewer, PhD, as chief scientific officer and interim chief operating officer. Dr Brewer, a pioneer and recognised industry leader in cancer immunotherapy and cell therapies, has served as a non-executive director (NED) of the company since March 2025, now joining [...]
Gene therapy has helped a six-year-old girl see in the dark again after treatment for a rare inherited eye condition. Saffie Sandford, from Stevenage, has Leber's congenital amaurosis, or LCA, a rare genetic condition that prevents cells in the eye from making a protein needed for normal vision. Without treatment, her family had been told [...]
The first UK volunteers have received a bird flu vaccine in a clinical trial aimed at protecting against a possible pandemic. The jab targets the H5N1 strain of flu, a form of bird flu that has caused major outbreaks in birds worldwide and has also spread to some mammals. The risk to humans is currently [...]
Bowel cancer patients stayed cancer-free for nearly three years after immunotherapy before surgery in a clinical trial. Researchers found patients with a specific type of bowel cancer showed no sign of the disease returning when they were given immune-boosting drugs before surgery. The results were described as "extremely encouraging". Dr Kai-Keen Shiu, chief [...]
A new cancer trial aimed at training the immune systems of children and young people to fight the disease offers “a real sense of hope”, according to the chief executive of one of its funders. Up to 60 patients with difficult-to-treat solid tumours will be recruited in the UK and the US for the study, [...]
