Helping Pakistan Strengthen Livestock Production And Access To Safer Crop Protection Solutions
31 October 2026, Pakistan: As Pakistan’s population grows, so does the demand for safe, nutritious food. Farmers need to…
Biologicals R&D Up 43% at Largest Crop Protection Companies, Chemical Down 9%
30 October 2026, Brussels: The largest crop protection companies are moving a growing share of their research money into…
Guest article: Executive impersonation threats are everywhere in agriculture. This is how to respond
Andrew Rose is a BioAg advisor to The Bioeconomy Information Sharing and Analysis Center (BIO-ISAC), a nonprofit buildin…
African Agritech’s $200 Gap: Why Top Innovations Miss Small Farmers
49 KEY POINTS Small-scale African farmers earn little per cycle, so agritech companies need institutions and foundations…
AgriFood Signals: DoorDash to buy Instacart, Terradot lands $34m, Biosphere wins Pentagon contract
AgFunderNews rounds up the most important fundings, mergers, acquisitions, closures, and industry buzz in agtech and foo…
Genmab’s $8B Merus bet passes Phase 3 test in head and neck cancer
Why it matters: The results suggest that a chemotherapy-free combination could challenge existing first-line treatments for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), a disease historically associated with median survival of about 10–12 months after recurrence or metastasis, according to Genmab. Everett Vokes of University of Chicago Medicine called the LiGeR-HN1 trial “the first positive Phase 3 study in this patient population in several years” in the company’s press release.
TME Pharma returns to its roots, looks to Japan to rescue NOX-A12
It is a remarkable return to its core business: TME Pharma wants to bring its drug candidate NOX-A12 back into clinical development. To that end, the company has signed an exclusive negotiation agreement with Japan’s TMS Co. Ltd. The focus is on the worldwide development and commercialization of the drug for glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive brain tumor. TMS intends to establish a subsidiary to finance the project and organize further clinical development.
Molecular Partners halves its workforce — is money running short?
What’s happening: Molecular Partners, based in Schlieren, Switzerland, is taking out the red pen. The Swiss biotech company plans to cut up to 55 jobs, equivalent to around 44% of its workforce. The layoffs are due to be completed by the second quarter of 2027, although the full cost savings will only take effect in the second half of the year. Officially, the company attributes the move to a strategic focus on its Radio-DARPin pipeline. It seems likely, however, that its financial resources and constraints also play a significant role.
Orbis and AlzeCure change CEOs; Simris hires another Heidelberg Pharma veteran
Orbis Medicines: A new CEO, with its co-founder staying on. Joanne Smith-Farrell has succeeded co-founder Morten Graugaard as CEO of the Copenhagen-based company. Graugaard becomes chief business officer, focusing on partnerships. Smith-Farrell takes over as Orbis advances its own oral macrocycle programs in immunology and inflammation after having secured a €90 million Series A last year and a Novo Nordisk collaboration in 2026. She previously led Be Biopharma through its move from a platform-focused company to one with clinical-stage programs. Before that, she was Chief Operating Officer and Head of the Oncology Business Unit at bluebird bio and held senior business development roles at Merck, Pfizer, and Gene Logic, and worked in Boston Consulting Group’s healthcare practice.
Barcelona’s ALLOX raises €9.4M to turn protein maps into drug candidates
Why it matters: Proteins that work by binding other proteins are often considered “undruggable,” because their binding interfaces are difficult to inhibit directly and most proteins have no known alternative site to target, a 2023 Nature paper co-written by two ALLOX founders notes. The company aims to find allosteric sites, regions outside a protein’s binding interface that can still regulate its activity, and the round is meant to help it develop its own small-molecule drugs that bind those sites.