Today Stories
4th March 2026 is World Obesity Day - convened by the World Obesity Federation with its global members, it unites stakeholders worldwide to drive awareness and action on obesity. The campaign highlights the urgent need for improved understanding, prevention and treatment, bringing together individuals, organisations and alliances under a shared call to act.
This year’s theme underscores that obesity affects all eight billion people, with a particular focus on protecting children and vulnerable communities. Projections indicate that by 2035, four billion people – half the world’s population – could be living with overweight or obesity. At this scale, the impact extends beyond individuals, contributing significantly to non-communicable diseases and placing pressure on health systems globally…
GSK has agreed to acquire Canadian biopharmaceutical company 35Pharma for approximately $950 million in cash. The deal secures 35Pharma’s clinical-stage drug candidate HS235, which is being developed to treat pulmonary hypertension, a serious condition characterised by high blood pressure in the lungs that can lead to heart failure. HS235 has completed early trials and is expected to enter patient studies soon. GSK believes the medicine could offer safety and metabolic advantages over current treatments, such as reduced bleeding risk and improved insulin sensitivity.
This transaction reflects a strategic focus by GSK’s leadership on adding science-validated mid-stage assets that address areas of high unmet need and promise strong long-term value. It is one of the first major deals under CE…
Belgian venture capital firm HERAN Partners has successfully closed a €90 million fundraising round for its second healthtech investment vehicle, HERAN HealthTech Fund II, with plans to grow the fund closer to €110 million or €120 million in the coming period. The firm focuses on supporting early-stage medtech and healthtech companies across Europe that aim to make healthcare and life sciences research and development more efficient, data-driven, and scalable.Key contributors to the fund include the European Investment Fund with a €20 million commitment and the Flemish investment company PMV, which has increased its participation to €10 million compared with the first fund. Other backers include entrepreneurs and management teams from HERAN’s first fund, as well as institutional partners s…
PharmaMar has partnered with Globant to accelerate cancer drug discovery through a new multi-agent artificial intelligence framework. Developed using Globant Enterprise AI, the system delivers over 90% accuracy in complex data retrieval and generates insights up to 15 times faster, enabling researchers to identify high-potential drug candidates more efficiently.
The platform analyses vast volumes of scientific, clinical and regulatory data, supporting decision-making across PharmaMar’s R&D ecosystem. More than 20 specialised digital agents operate across preclinical, clinical, regulatory, commercial and strategic functions, working within a secure architecture to process documents, simulate scenarios and rank promising pharmaceutical assets.
The system can review over 4,500 research do…
Pharmacelera has closed a €6 million financing round to accelerate its growth in the United States and further develop its high speed, high accuracy drug discovery platform. The funding round was led by Heran Partners and included participation from Clave Capital, Inveready and Bio&Tech Smart Capital. The investment will support the establishment of a permanent U.S. team and deepen relationships with major pharmaceutical and biotech customers on both coasts. Pharmacelera applies proprietary algorithms that combine Quantum Mechanics and Artificial Intelligence to explore vast chemical “exaSpace” and identify novel molecular candidates with much greater speed and efficiency than traditional approaches.
This technology can be applied across all stages of drug discovery from initial hit fi…
Medica Group, the UK’s largest teleradiology provider and a leader in digital pathology and telemedicine, has agreed to add Axon Diagnostics to the group, expanding access to high-quality remote diagnostic reporting across the NHS and independent sector.
The integration brings together Medica’s extensive clinician network and established clinical governance infrastructure with Axon’s agile technology platform and workflow tools. Axon will also welcome sister company MITIS Health, whose Clinical Desktop technology enables secure, high-performance remote reporting widely used by NHS Trusts.
Together, the organisations will form the UK’s largest clinical reporting network, serving more than 2.5 million patients across 55% of NHS Trusts. The combined group will offer enhanced capacity across m…
Richmond Pharmacology has formed an Expert Regulatory Advisory Board to strengthen its support for clinical trial sponsors navigating complex and evolving regulatory environments. The new advisory board brings together former senior regulators and industry leaders with deep experience across UK, EU and international authorities and regulatory strategy. It will work closely with Richmond’s clinical and regulatory teams to embed practical regulatory insight early in drug development planning and trial delivery.
The board’s expertise spans scientific advice engagement, first-in-human and complex trial design, advanced therapy development, inspection readiness and global regulatory strategy. Chaired by Dr Lisa Campbell, Director of Regulatory Strategy at Richmond Pharmacology and former senior…
THX Pharma and Biocodex have announced a strategic licensing agreement to support the development and commercialisation of treatments for three rare genetic diseases with high unmet medical needs. Under the agreement, Biocodex secures an exclusive global licence to develop and commercialise Batten-1, a drug candidate targeting juvenile Batten disease, and a regional licence for the United States and Canada to develop and commercialise TX01, a new formulation aimed at treating both Gaucher disease and Niemann-Pick disease type C.
The total deal is valued at up to €173 million, including a €12 million upfront payment, up to €161 million in milestone payments tied to development and sales, and tiered double-digit royalties on future net sales. THX Pharma will lead clinical development with fi…
4Moving Biotech has successfully closed a €12 million financing round to advance its lead disease-modifying osteoarthritis drug candidate for knee osteoarthritis. The clinical-stage biotech, a spin-off of 4P-Pharma focused on first-in-class treatments that could alter the course of osteoarthritis, completed the funding through a structured process supported by private investors and family offices.
The combination of equity and loans extends the company’s financial runway to reach a critical proof-of-concept milestone in its Phase 2a programme while reinforcing its strategy for long-term value creation. This funding follows prior public support including a France 2030 grant and coincides with the transatlantic expansion of its INFLAM-MOTION study into the United States. With approximately €…
A new cancer drug discovery company called ALTx Therapeutics has been launched to develop therapies that exploit a specific vulnerability in tumours reliant on the Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres or ALT pathway. This mechanism allows around 10 to 15 percent of cancers to maintain telomere length and continue dividing indefinitely, and is commonly found in tumour types that have few effective treatments. Targeting ALT could open new precision treatment options based on novel biological targets identified through a decade of research at the Francis Crick Institute.
The company has been spun out of the Crick and is being advanced by Slingshot Therapeutics, benefiting from integrated operational and development expertise while maintaining strong academic ties. An initial £12.55 million fu…
Cycle Pharmaceuticals has completed its acquisition of Applied Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on rare disease treatments. The deal follows a definitive agreement reached late last year under which Cycle launched a tender offer to buy all outstanding Applied shares at a fixed cash price per share along with a contingent value right that may provide additional future payments if certain regulatory or commercial milestones are met. Applied’s portfolio includes drug candidates such as govorestat, being developed for rare metabolic and neurological conditions.
The acquisition strengthens Cycle’s position in the rare disease space and adds new development assets to its pipeline. Prior to closing, Cycle extended its tender offer several times to secure enough sha…
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have uncovered a hidden biological interaction that may help change the way Parkinson’s disease is treated. A team led by scientists including Xin Qi found that a toxic protein involved in Parkinson’s attaches to a vital enzyme and disrupts the cell’s energy supply, accelerating nerve cell damage in the brain. This insight goes beyond symptom relief and gets closer to understanding the core mechanisms of the disease itself. Building on this discovery, the researchers have developed a novel compound called CS2.
In experimental models including human brain tissue, patient-derived neurons and mice, CS2 acts like a decoy. It blocks the harmful interaction, helping restore energy function in cells and reducing inflammation. Early…
Stanford Medicine scientists have uncovered a promising way to reverse cartilage loss in aging knees and prevent arthritis after injury by targeting a protein linked to aging. In research recently published and shared by Stanford, blocking a protein known to rise with age helped restore healthy knee cartilage in older mice and reduced arthritis development after injuries similar to common ligament tears. Treated mice regained thicker, functional cartilage and showed improved joint movement compared with untreated animals. Early tests on human knee cartilage samples from joint replacement surgeries also demonstrated signs of new cartilage formation when exposed to the treatment, offering hope for future therapies that could regenerate worn-out tissue without surgery. This approach works by…
Evestia Clinical has announced the acquisition of ICRC-Weyer GmbH, a well-established contract research organisation and scientific consultancy based in Berlin. This move strengthens Evestia Clinical’s full-service clinical research capabilities by bringing specialist expertise in biostatistics, data management and medical writing into its global offering. The deal also reinforces the company’s presence in Germany and across Europe, providing biotech innovators with more integrated support throughout clinical development. ICRC-Weyer will continue to operate under its own brand with existing services and teams remaining intact. Leadership from ICRC-Weyer, including Managing Director Johann Daniel Weyer, will join the Evestia Clinical leadership team.
The acquisition builds on Evestia Clinic…
South Korean contract manufacturer ST Pharm has sealed a supply contract worth $56 million to provide active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for an oligonucleotide therapeutic developed by an unnamed US biotech company. The deal covers manufacture of oligonucleotide raw materials for a prospective treatment targeting severe hypertriglyceridemia and represents roughly 30 percent of ST Pharm’s 2024 revenue, underscoring its expanding footprint in the global API market. The supply agreement runs from late January through December of this year, and the value jump has also boosted ST Pharm’s order backlog by around 30 percent.
The company has responded to growing demand for oligonucleotide therapies by ramping up capacity, including opening a second dedicated manufacturing facility last year…
Otsuka Pharmaceutical, in partnership with Ionis Pharmaceuticals, has secured European Commission approval for Dawnzera (donidalorsen) in the European Union as a preventative treatment for hereditary angioedema (HAE) in adults and adolescents aged 12 and older. This decision comes after a positive opinion from the European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use, which reviewed data demonstrating that Dawnzera can significantly reduce the frequency of debilitating HAE attacks.
The medication is designed to be self-administered by patients via pre-filled injection pens at multi-week intervals, offering convenience alongside clinical benefit. Trials showed substantial reductions in attack rates versus placebo, supporting its use as a routine prophylactic therapy. Th…
DeepHow has introduced PharmaCloud, a cloud-based platform designed specifically for pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers to improve training, execution, and verification on the factory floor. PharmaCloud provides a GMP-compliant environment that helps teams standardize procedures across sites so operators follow approved methods with greater consistency and fewer errors than traditional training.
The platform unifies training content, guided step-by-step execution, and AI-powered verification to ensure critical process steps are completed correctly and according to validated procedures.
PharmaCloud also tracks changes and training records so teams always work with current, approved instructions and maintain full audit trails. By bringing visual guidance and AI feedback into dai…
Sanofi has secured European Union approval for Teizeild (teplizumab), a new disease-modifying therapy for people aged eight years and older with stage 2 type 1 diabetes. This decision by the European Commission follows a positive opinion from the European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use and makes Teizeild the first treatment in the EU shown to delay the onset of stage 3 clinical type 1 diabetes.
The approval is based on positive results from the TN-10 phase II study, where Teizeild significantly extended the time patients remained in the presymptomatic stage compared with placebo, effectively slowing progression of the autoimmune attack on insulin-producing cells. Sanofi says the drug offers patients and families a chance to postpone the need for insulin t…
QPS Holdings, LLC, an award-winning contract research organisation focused on clinical trials and bioanalysis, has implemented the Oracle Argus Safety Database to elevate its pharmacovigilance capabilities. This industry-leading safety case management system will support QPS in capturing, managing and reporting adverse event data across clinical trials with greater efficiency and compliance. By adopting Argus, QPS aims to improve patient safety oversight, strengthen regulatory compliance and streamline safety reporting workflows for sponsors.
The move reflects QPS’s commitment to operational excellence and advanced technology integration as drug development becomes increasingly complex and data-intensive. Oracle Argus is widely recognised as a comprehensive pharmacovigilance solution that…
OpenAI has unveiled ChatGPT Health, a new feature within its popular AI chatbot that lets users bring their medical information and wellness data into a dedicated health-focused space. The tool creates a separate environment inside ChatGPT where people can connect electronic health records and data from wellness apps such as Apple Health, MyFitnessPal, Function and others.
This enables the AI to provide responses that are grounded in an individual’s own lab results, fitness patterns or appointment history rather than generic wellness guidance. Health conversations are isolated from regular chats and protected with purpose-built encryption and privacy controls, and OpenAI says they are not used to train its core models.
OpenAI stressed that ChatGPT Health is designed to help users understan…
