No 04 2025

Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026 for discovering how chemical reactions can produce only one of two mirror-image molecules. Their work shows how this kind of asymmetry can arise, and has been decisive for chemists designing reactions to make pharmaceuticals.

After twelve years leading Norway's oldest health cluster, Ketil Widerberg is leaving Oslo Cancer Cluster to head an AI initiative in healthcare at Oslo University Hospital.

Stockholm-based Pharmability has dosed the first patient in its Phase Ib study of TIR-C in atopic dermatitis, and the first cohort is now fully enrolled. The trial is the first in which the drug candidate is tested in humans.

Genmab and AbbVie's bispecific antibody epcoritamab, added to standard R-CHOP chemoimmunotherapy, significantly improved progression-free survival in the Phase III EPCORE DLBCL-2 trial in newly diagnosed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). The companies say it is the first Phase III study of a bispecific antibody combination to show such a benefit in the frontline setting.

The Novo Nordisk Foundation has awarded DKK 215 million (approximately EUR 28.8 million) to establish DANCEM, a new national cryogenic electron microscopy (cryoEM) infrastructure that will be open to researchers from universities, hospitals, and industry across Denmark and the Nordics.

Icelandic biosimilar developer Alvotech has signed a long-term manufacturing agreement with LOTTE Biologics for US-based production. A day earlier, the FDA approved a second production suite in Reykjavik for its Humira biosimilar SIMLANDI.

Beactica Therapeutics has selected BEA-28 as a preclinical candidate in its TEAD program, which aims to develop new therapies for aggressive, hard-to-treat solid tumors, including cancers that have become resistant to existing treatments.