Newsletter Signup - Under Article / In Page"*" indicates required fields With one of the most densely concentrated life sciences and biotech ecosystems in Europe, the Netherlands is home to numerous biotech and pharmaceutical companies, and also happens to be the headquarters of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which is now based in Amsterdam after it had to move out of London when the U.K. voted to leave the European Union (EU). As the Netherlands now sets its sights on becoming a global biotech leader by 2040, we take a deeper look at the country’s biotech scene.The Netherlands: Already a well-established biotech hubOverall, the biotech sector in the Netherlands is internationally oriented, with a strong base in early-stage research, academic excellence, and public-private partnerships.According to Annemiek Verkamman, managing director of hollandbio, a biotech industry association, the Netherlands has been building its biotech sector for decades, meaning that it is now a well-established life sciences and biotech hub. “We have world-renowned crop breeding companies, Leiden and Oss are leading biopharmaceutical hub spots, and there is a historical presence of industrial biotech knowledge institutions and companies such as DSM-Firmenich and Corbion.”Thanks to this, the country is now considered to be one of the leading European biotech hubs, along with the likes of Switzerland, France, and the U.K. It is currently home to around 1,979 life sciences companies, including several well-known biotech companies, such as Amsterdam-based uniQure, which developed the first approved gene therapy for hemophilia B.Furthermore, over the past couple of years – particularly since the arrival of the EMA in Amsterdam – the Netherlands has managed to attract a significant number of foreign life sciences companies, whether that be big pharma companies or up-and-coming biotechs. In fact, several large drugmakers, including AstraZeneca, Novartis, and Roche, currently have bases in the country

Newsletter Signup - Under Article / In Page"*" indicates required fields Artificial intelligence (AI) has taken the biotech industry by storm, allowing companies to speed up the drug discovery process while also making it more cost-effective. With so many companies in the industry now embracing the technology, we take a look at 12 AI drug discovery companies. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed AI to be an essential tool in helping to find treatments and vaccines with greater speed and precision. Since then, there have been several drug discovery breakthroughs for AI within the biopharma industry, from helping to quickly and efficiently discover a new antibiotic called abaucin to combat a multi-drug resistant bacteria, to fully discovering and designing a drug that has entered clinical trials. Here are 12 AI drug discovery companies currently making great strides with their technology. Anima Biotech Technology: mRNA biology modulators Disease areas: Immunology, oncology and neuroscienceRecent news: Announced promising preclinical data for lead pulmonary fibrosis candidate Anima Biotech’s AI drug discovery technology is built around its mRNA Lightning.AI platform, which images hundreds of cellular pathways in both healthy and diseased cells to train disease-specific AI models, making use of neural networks to help these models distinguish between healthy and diseased cells and identify dysregulated pathways. These pathways are subsequently analyzed to uncover novel targets backed by experimental validation. Anima currently has 20 preclinical candidates being evaluated for immunology, oncology, and neuroscience indications, with its most advanced candidate indicated for the treatment of lung fibrosis. The company announced in February 2024 that this candidate had shown promising preclinical results and could open up new avenues for treating patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The AI drug discovery company also has ongoing collaborations with several pharma giants. After initially partnering with Eli Lilly in 2018 and Takeda in 2021, its most recent partnership was formed with AbbVie in 2023 for the discovery and development of mRNA biology modulators against oncology and immunology targets. Atomwise Technology: TYK2 inhibitor  Disease area: Autoimmune and autoinflammatory diseasesRecent news: Published results showcasing AtomNet’s ability for drug discoveryAtomwise is leveraging the power of AI in an attempt to revolutionize small molecule drug discovery