German Start-Up Provides “Doctor in Your Pocket”
The coronavirus pandemic has increased demands on GPs’ time and capacities while underscoring the advantages of hybrid and digital medicine. That’s a need Munich start-up Avi Medical wants to address.
Industries / Life Sciences
German Mask Demand Likely to Remain High
With the rise in anti-coronavirus vaccinations, numbers of Covid-19 cases have significantly dropped in Germany and elsewhere. But protective masks are almost certainly to stay in great demand – both because of state rules and personal preferences.
German Scientists Find Cause for Corona Vaccine Blood Clots
Rare but serious cases of blood clotting in people inoculated by the vector vaccines produced by AstraZeneca and Johnson&Johnson have been one obstacle to the international immunization campaigns against Covid-19.
Hamburg Researchers Identify Covid-19 Biomarkers
Scientists know that around 19 percent of those infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes Covid-19, contract a severe case of the disease. But it’s been difficult to predict which patients are most at risk of life-threatening illness.
Making mRNA Treatments More Effective
Messenger RNA (mRNA) is at the heart of the world’s most effective anti-corona vaccines and has also shown great promise in combatting cancer and other diseases. Now scientists at Germany’s Research Center Jülich, working with pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, have discovered how it can be better administered under the skin.
One to Watch: Why Simon Renard from France founded a company in Germany
He chose to locate in Jena, a small city in the eastern state of Thuringia, on account of its tradition of scientific innovation but also, he says, because “it’s a really nice place to live.”
Germany Launches €100 Million Program for University Hospital Physicians
The idea is to better connect medical research with medical treatment. The German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has announced it will invest EUR 100 Million over the ten years to give specialist doctors, who are normally involved in daily practice, more opportunities to carry out research.
The ABCs of CBD
One hot start-up sector in Germany at the moment is products made from the cannabis derivative cannabidiol or CBD. Evidence suggests that CBD can alleviate disorders ranging from anxiety and insomnia to epilepsy without creating dependence or having intoxicating effects.
Lots of New German Medications in 2020
Coronavirus may have dominated the headlines last year, but Germany’s pharmaceutical companies were busy fighting disease on a number of fronts.
Bayer Teams with CureVac
Pharmaceuticals colossus Bayer has partnered with German biotech company CureVac in the latter’s development of a vaccine to combat the coronavirus.
