Anniversary Timeline

25th Years of Innovation

2020

2020: First vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19 to receive conditional marketing authorization from the European Medicines Agency: COMIRNATY® (BNT162b2/Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine)

Nominated by: Pfizer Organisations in nomination: Pfizer, BioNTech In March 2020, the WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic. At “lightspeed,” Pfizer collaborated with BioNTech, a..Read More

2020

2020: First large scale application of AI to protein structure determination: AlfaFold

Nominated by: UK BioIndustry Association Organisation in nomination: DeepMind An artificial intelligence (AI) network developed by Google AI offshoot DeepMind made a gargantuan leap in solving..Read More

2019

2019: Large scale microbial production of next generation, zero-calorie, non-artificial EVERSWEET™ Stevia sweetener

Nominated by: DSM Organisation in nomination: DSM, Cargill Most people consume too many calories that originate from sugar, increasing the risk of being overweight or developing..Read More

2018

2018: First CAR T cell therapy approved in the US for adult patients with DLBCL and amongst the first approved in Europe

Nominated by: Kite (a Gilead Company) Organisations in nomination: Kite (a Gilead Company) Non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) can occur at any age, and accounts for an..Read More

2018

2018: European “1+ Million Genomes” Initiative launched

Nominated by: Voisin Consulting Life Sciences The European “1+ Million Genomes” Initiative builds from the achievements of the Human Genome Project and aims to have at..Read More

2018

2018: Autologous CAR-T cell therapy Kymriah – unique to each patient. First EC approval for two indications (pALL and DLBCL)

Nominated by: Novartis Organisations in nomination: Novartis Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) is a type of cancer that affects white blood cells. It progresses quickly and aggressively..Read More

2017

2017: First Radioligand therapy (RLT) approved in Europe for the treatment of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumours – Lutathera®

Nominated by: Novartis Organisations in nomination: Novartis Gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumours are a rare type of cancer that can form in the pancreas or in other parts..Read More

2016

2016: First curative gene therapy for ADA-SCID approved for infants

Nominated by: Federchimica Assobiotec Organisation in nomination: GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), currently moved to Orchard Therapeutics, Telethon Foundation (Telethon), l’IRCCS San Raffaele Hospital (SRH) Italy and Molecular Medicine SpA..Read More

2016

2016: World’s first industrial scale plant for production of butanediol (1,4 BDO) from renewable materials via biosynthesis (fermentation from micro-organisms)

Nominated by: Federchimica Assobiotec Organisation in nomination: Novamont (Italy) 1,4, Butanediol is a chemical intermediate used for a wide range of applications, including industrial processes (as..Read More

2015

Improved food safety through asparaginase produced via genetically modified micro-organisms: reduced acrylamide in cooked food

Nominated by: DSM Organisation in nomination: DSM and Novozymes Acrylamide can arise during the cooking process of foods via reaction of the amino acid asparagine and..Read More