South East life sciences: round-up of main stories in January

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Stephen Emerson

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The Business Magazine takes a look at the main stories making the news in the life sciences industry in the South East of England.

ANGLE develops new breast cancer treatment

Guildford-based life sciences company ANGLE has revealed "breakthrough" research that demonstrates the potential of circulating tumour cells harvested from a simple blood draw using the Company's Parsortix® system.
The technique could in time be used as an alternative to invasive metastatic tissue biopsy for metastatic breast cancer patients.

John Dawson steps down from Oxford Biomedica

Oxford Biomedica chief executive John Dawson said he was stepping down after 13 years at the helm of the gene and cell therapy firm which helped develop a Covid-19 vaccine with AstraZeneca.

Sanofi invests in Parkinson's treatment

Reading-based Sanofi has signed a deal with South Korea’s ABL Bio.

The life sciences firm is paying $75 million upfront for the preclinical-stage drug, codenamed ABL301, a double-headed antibody that targets alpha-synuclein at one end and the IGF-1 receptor at the other, a mechanism designed to make it cross the blood-brain barrier.

ABL has data showing that ABL301 can penetrate the central nervous system and, once there, break down aggregated alpha-synuclein. Clinical trials will be needed to see if doing so can interrupt the neurodegeneration seen in Parkinson’s.

Allergy Therapeutics positive outlook for 2022

AIM listed Allergy Therapeutics PLC said profits will be in line with market forecasts as it updated the market on trading and progress on its two key clinical trials.
The Worthing-based company will share data on its peanut allergy treatment in the third quarter of next year which is earlier than expected.Its phase III evaluation of the grass allergy treatment will get underway in the autumn.

Breakthrough for Oxford Nanopore

Scientists from Oxford Nanopore Technologies, NVIDIA, Google and others worked with a research team at the Stanford University School of Medicine to develop a whole genome nanopore sequencing approach that improves predictions of how a patient's disease will develop.
The technique can characterise pathogenic variants in as little as 7 hours and 18 minutes - faster than any previously published approach in clinical samples.

Sanofi and Exscientia join forces

Sanofi and Exscientia have entered a research partnership and licence agreement for the development of up to 15 new small-molecule medicines across oncology and immunology.

The precision-engineered medicines will be developed using an end-to-end artificial intelligence (AI)-driven platform of Exscientia using real samples from patients.

The alliance will identify and choose target projects using the tailored medicine platform of Exscientia.

Stephen Emerson

Stephen Emerson is the Managing Editor of The Business Magazine and is responsible for the publication's print publications and online properties including the newly launched Biz News websites in Hampshire and Dorset. Stephen has been a journalist for 20 years and has worked at local, regional and national publications and led a team which made The Scotsman website one of the fastest growing news sites in the UK with over eight million monthly users. He has a keen interest in technology, property and corporate finance and telling the stories of the people behind the successful firms in these sectors.