Your Daily Biotechnology Briefing

Auxilium Biotechnologies Achieves Historic Space Bioprinting Milestone, Successfully Bioprinting Kidney and Liver Tissues in Orbit for the First Time

• Auxilium Biotechnologies announced a significant achievement in space biomanufacturing on July 9, 2026, successfully bioprinting kidney and liver tissues aboard the International Space Station (ISS) for the first time. These bioprinted tissues, along with nerve repair implants, returned to Earth on June 17, 2026, demonstrating the potential for manufacturing complex biological products in microgravity to support drug discovery and disease modeling. This marks a crucial step toward on-demand access to experimental systems in space, reducing reliance on Earth-based supply chains.

  Lasvegassun

• Roche has halted development on two of its Huntington's disease programs, the phase 2 trial of Ionis-partnered tominersen and the phase 1 trial of RG6496, as announced on July 9, 2026. This decision, communicated in a letter to the patient community, follows the tominersen trial's failure to meet its efficacy objective and safety concerns for RG6496, representing a significant setback for the development of disease-modifying treatments for Huntington's.

  Fiercebiotech

• GSK terminated its collaboration with California-based biotechnology company Alector on July 6, 2026, following clinical setbacks for two experimental brain drugs, latozinemab and nivisnebart, aimed at neurodegenerative diseases. This dissolution concludes a potentially $2.2 billion deal that had marked GSK's re-entry into neuroscience, highlighting the challenges in developing effective treatments for complex neurological conditions.

  Biopharmadive

• Northwest Biotherapeutics presented updated survival data from its Phase III trial of DCVax®-L for glioblastoma (GBM) on July 8, 2026, at the British Neuro-Oncology Society Annual Meeting. New statistical analyses suggest the median survival benefit from the original trial was substantially underestimated, with some analyses indicating a median survival advantage of 4.9 to 6.3 months for DCVax-L treatment.

  Nwbio