Day: July 24, 2023

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Curia expands biologics capabilities with access to Touchlight’s doggybone DNA

Curia collaborates with Touchlight to expand its mRNA manufacturing offering to enable access to enzymatic doggybone DNA (dbDNA™)

ALBANY, N.Y. and HAMPTON, United Kingdom, July 24, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Curia, a leading contract research, development and manufacturing organization, and Touchlight, a company pioneering enzymatic DNA production, today announced an agreement which will provide Curia and its clients a streamlined means of access to Touchlight’s doggybone DNA (dbDNA). The arrangement expands Curia’s mRNA manufacturing offerings with an additional differentiated source of DNA raw material that is immediately available to be accessed by Curia customers. Under the arrangement, Touchlight will directly manufacture dbDNA on behalf of Curia’s customers.

“Curia remains committed to strengthening our biologics offerings and end-to-end mRNA manufacturing capabilities,” said Christopher Conway, President of R&D, Curia. “With the addition of enzymatic DNA through our partnership with Touchlight, our customers will have a critical advantage in terms of scalability and speed to market.”

Touchlight’s dbDNA is a linear, double-stranded, covalently-closed DNA vector. DNA serves as the template for making mRNA therapies. Through a simple enzymatic process called in vitro transcription, genetic information is copied from DNA to mRNA. This mRNA is then able to teach the cells to make precise proteins that are used to treat or prevent diseases. Touchlight’s enzymatic DNA is produced with a cell-free enzymatic process that offers unmatched benefits in speed, quality and capacity when compared to traditional plasmid DNA production.

Karen Fallen, CEO, Touchlight commented: “We are delighted to work with Curia in order to further expand access to dbDNA as a critical starting material. Working in parallel with fellow CDMOs is a key component of our focus upon enabling broad market access to dbDNA. Curia is building a comprehensive mRNA solution, and this arrangement enables both companies to extend their offering to a wider audience.”

Touchlight’s dbDNA is a novel solution that is widely applicable and versatile, advancing Curia’s mRNA manufacturing capabilities as a complement to its bioprocessing-grade plasmid offering.

About Curia

Curia is a leading contract research, development, and manufacturing organization providing products and services from R&D through commercial manufacturing to pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical customers. Curia’s nearly 4,000 employees at 29 locations across the U.S., Europe, and Asia help its customers advance from curiosity to cure. Learn more at CuriaGlobal.com.

About Touchlight

Touchlight is a privately-owned CDMO based in London, U.K., focused on providing DNA services and manufacturing enzymatically produced doggybone DNA (dbDNA™) to enable the development of genetic medicines. Touchlight provides rapid, enzymatic DNA development and manufacturing for all advanced therapy production, including mRNA, viral and non-viral gene therapy, and DNA API. dbDNA is a minimal, linear, covalently closed structure, which eliminates bacterial sequences. Touchlight’s revolutionary enzymatic production platform enables unprecedented speed, scale, and the ability to target genes with a size and complexity that is impossible with current technologies. Clients can be supported from pre-clinical through development and supply to licensing and tech transfer for use in-house.

Curia Contact Information:
Viana Bhagan
+1 518 512 2111
corporatecommunications@CuriaGlobal.com

Touchlight contact information:

Karen Fallen, Chief Executive Officer
Robin Bodicoat, Head of Marketing
E: info@touchlight.com
T: +44 20 8481 9200

GlobeNewswire Distribution ID 8879177

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OPEN Health announces a new team of experts will lead its HEOR & Market Access Scientific Office

London, UK, July 24, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — OPEN Health, a global provider of consultancy, HEOR and market access, and scientific communications services, today announced a new team of experts will lead its HEOR & Market Access Scientific Office. This expert team will be led by Dr. Elisabeth Fenwick as Chief Scientific Officer with support from Professor Ben van Hout as Scientific Founder.

Both Elisabeth and Ben joined OPEN Health through its acquisition of Pharmerit International. Elisabeth Fenwick is most widely known for working on the cost-effectiveness acceptability curve (CEAC), creating the cost-effectiveness acceptability frontier, and for her work in value of information analyses for research decisions. She has over 20 years of experience in the industry and has published more than 50 publications globally. Ben van Hout is most commonly known for being one of the co-founders of the EQ-5D (a standardized measure of health-related quality of life) and as the developer of the CEAC. He was also one of the first researchers to perform a discrete event simulation and is published in the New England Journal of Medicine. He has over 35 years of experience in the industry and was honored with the ISPOR Avedis Donabedian Outcomes Research Lifetime Achievement Award in 2020.

“The purpose of the Scientific Office is to ensure that science is at the center of everything we do. Our scientific experts are here to support the HEOR and market access team with their amazing research developing innovative solutions.” Elisabeth commented.

The Scientific Office is made up of experts who bring unique skillsets from across OPEN Health’s HEOR & market access service areas. The appointed team consists of Maarten Treur, MSc, Vice President and Global Head of Modeling & Meta-Analysis; Dr. Viktor Chirikov, Director of Real‑World Evidence & Data Analytics; Dr. Marco Boeri, Director of Preference Research in Patient-Centered Outcomes; and Emanuele Arcà, MSc, Senior Research Consultant in Strategic Market Access. Craig Bennison, MSc, Executive Director and Global Innovation Lead for OPEN Health HEOR & Market Access, will also join the team and will focus specifically on innovation.

“Over the last few years, the scientific contributions and leadership of these experts have played instrumental roles in shaping our reputation and research efforts, working in partnership with our clients to improve health outcomes and patient wellbeing,” said Richard Jones, President of OPEN Health Evidence & Access. “This team will ensure our scientific expertise, thought leadership, and innovation stay front and center of our HEOR and market access offering.”

To learn more about the team of experts in the Scientific Office, please explore this interactive publication.

About OPEN Health

OPEN Health unites deep scientific knowledge with wide-ranging specialist expertise to unlock possibilities that improve health outcomes and patient wellbeing. Working in partnership with our clients, we embrace our different perspectives and strengths to deliver fresh thinking and solutions that make a difference. OPEN Health is a flexible global organization that solves complex healthcare challenges across HEOR and market access, medical communications and creative omnichannel campaigns. For more information on OPEN Health, visit www.openhealthgroup.com.

Candice Subero
OPEN Health
candicesubero@openhealthgroup.com

GlobeNewswire Distribution ID 8878752

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Zimbabwe gears up for crucial August 23 general election

Campaigns are in full swing in Zimbabwe as political parties gear up for a general election next month.

Incumbent president, Emmerson Mnangagwa of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), is hoping to secure a second term in office. His biggest rival in the presidential election is Nelson Chamisa of the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party.

The two were the frontrunners in the last presidential race in 2018 too. This time around though, they will have to contend with a once exiled former ZANU-PF minister, Savior Kasukuwere, too.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has approved 11 presidential candidates in total , with each having had to pay $20,000 (€18,000) to appear on the ballot.

To win the presidency, one candidates must get more than 50% of the vote. If no outright winner emerges, a run-off between the top two contenders will be held on October 2.

Alexandar Rusero, a politics professor at Africa University in Zimbabwe, says only Mnangagwa, Chamisa and Kasukuwere have any chance of emerging the winner.

"The rest are just side shows and maybe people who are strategically positioning themselves in the post-election. Because what happened in the 2018 election has since proved that there are some dividends if you invest in this race," Rusero told DW.

What voters think

Voters in the southern African country will head to the polls against a backdrop of an alleged intensifying crackdown on the opposition. Several members of the opposition have been arrested and dozens of opposition campaign events have been blocked.

The CCC has also complained that it has been given too little exposure on national television in the runup to the vote.

One voter in Harare told DW she is worried about the violence on the political scene in the runup to the vote.

"I think the current elections, judging from the current social media posts, like Twitter, I have seen many cases of political assaults happening. So, they are violent," Adorable Jamela said.

Eighty-year-old Mnangagwa has led Zimbabwe since the military forced long-term leader Robert Mugabe to resign in 2017. The election that secured him a first presidential term was disputed.

Jamela told DW she is expecting Mnangagwa to win.

"Currently I am expecting ZANU-PF to win for obvious reasons. They are the ones putting efforts into this election campaigning and the opposition hasn't convinced me that they are really in the race."

Voter Robert Nhumbe says he is hoping for the opposite outcome. "Most people, especially here in urban areas, we want Chamisa to win because he offers us jobs [and] opportunities. So, we hope Chamisa will win," he told DW.

Nhumbe says he regards the 2023 electoral process as relatively peaceful: "This time, elections are quite peaceful, unlike in the previous years when we used to have violence [and] people beating each other."

First-time voter Kimberly says election preparations have been better than in 2018. "I am going to vote in these elections. So far so good. There has been peace and I hope ZANU-PF does not rig the election," she told DW.

Sanctions and new 'patriotic law'

Zimbabwe's economy, ailing for decadesis, and international sanctions that date back to the Mugabe-era, are big election issues.

Last month, inflation was at 175% but some economists estimate it was higher. Negotiations are meanwhile underway to end sanctions and clear decades of unpaid loans that make up the bulk of Zimbabwe's $14bn external debt.

Another key election issue has been the so-called Patriotic Bill which Mnangagwa signed into law this month. It makes provision for a death sentence for any citizen who calls for international sanctions on Zimbabwe.

"We will not [allow] the Western countries to dictate to us. We do not dictate to them. This interference from outside is unacceptable," Mnangagwa said in defence of the new law recently. "We as a sovereignty state and a member of the United Nations ... have a sovereign right to run our elections, uninterfered."

Rutendo Matinyarare, the chairman of the pro-government Zimbabwe Anti-Sanctions Movement, says the new law "deters people and unites Zimbabweans to not sabotage their own country."

But Lucia Masuka, the executive director of Amnesty International in Zimbabwe, disagrees and describes the legislation as "an attack on the rights to freedom of assembly, association, and expression."

Incumbent warns election observers

Electoral authorities say about 6.6 million voters are registered this year, an improvement on the 5.7 million registered in 2018.

Among them is MacDonald Moyo who does not support the controversial new law. "As a youth, I think the Patriotic Bill is not quite okay. So, I think it should not have been made a law. It's not a good law. It's draconian," he told DW.

Samson Choga, another registered voter, told DW he did not believe the new is really fair "because the ruling party can use it to suppress the oppositions,."

Mnangagwa has meanwhile issued a stern warning to international election observers . "Those countries who want to observe must restrict themselves to the role of observing our elections. Not to interfere in that process. We will not accept it. After all they have elections full of faults in their own places," he said.

Zimbabweans in the diaspora are keenly following the elections. Many like Shona, who lives in neighboring South Africa, say traveling home to vote is a priority.

"I am going back home to vote. If the election is free and fair, my vote is going to make a difference because I would have voted," Shona told DW.

Not all Zimbabweans living abroad are able to return or willing to do so though. "I have been home recently. I saw how things were being done. Most of the opposition rallies were being banned. I don't think it will be a fair and free election," another Zimbabwean living in South Africa told DW. The person declined to be named.

Rusero, the politics professor at Africa University in Zimbabwe told DW he is doubtful that the 2023 elections will bring about meaningful change.

"Unfortunately, we are not yet at a stage where there is a relationship between what voters want and what they vote for, otherwise we wouldn't have ZANU-PF in power for the past 43 years," he said.

Source: Deutsche Welle

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Sharp drop in grain production in Jendouba

Grain production in the governorate of Jendouba fell sharply this season, with an estimated harvest of around 309,000 quintals compared with 1.9 million quintals in 2022.

The quantities collected in the governorate of Jendouba up to July 24 have reached 309,000 quintals, or 98% of the total grain harvest in the region, a source at the Local Authority for Agricultural Development said.

Estimates by the latter, based on a production of 500,000 quintals, were revised after rain damaged 200,000 quintals of the harvest.

Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse

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FIFA to grant FTF TND 9 million to upgrade sports infrastructure

FIFA had approved the Tunisian Football Federation (FTF)'s strategic programme for upgrading its sports infrastructure and had agreed to granting some TND 9 million (around $3 million), FTF President Wadie Jari announced on Monday.

The FTF had submitted a file to the FIFA setting out its strategic plans to upgrade its infrastructure.

The agreement had been reached following a recent inspection by a team commissioned by the FIFA, Jari added.

The latter voiced in a statement, his gratitude to the FIFA for its ongoing support to the FTF, adding that the international authority does not grant any aid without ensuring the transparency of the federations' financial transactions.

Jari further pointed out that the FIFA had approved new projects to equip the federation's sports medicine centre with the most advanced medical and paramedical equipment, which was 95% complete, as well as the construction of an academy for referees and a residence for women's teams, adding that this work would continue until 2026.

Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse