Bankomat Goes Boom; Roche Buys Gene Therapy Firm; Basel Meat Maker Invests In FauxBurger

News For 26 February 2019

Just past midnight, a loud explosion awoke the residents of the Schönenbuch neighborhood at the end of Neuweilerstrasse near the border between the city and Basel Land.  When police arrived, they determined that thieves had driven their vehicle into an automated teller machine on the ground floor of a building.  They then drove off, taking the machine and its contents with them.  No word on how much was stolen, and the police are working on a tip that the perpetrators sped off from the scene of the crime in the direction of the French border.

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Major Basel-based pharmaceuticals company Roche has announced its intention to buy Spark Therapeutics Inc. The deal is said to be valued at 4.3 billion dollars according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. Spark, a US based company founded in 2013 at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, specializes in the development of gene therapy drugs. In 2017, its Luxturna blindness treatment was the first gene therapy for an inherited disease to get approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Currently, Spark is developing gene therapies for hemophilia, an area of treatment in which Roche is seeking to broaden its presence. 

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Basel based Bell Food Group, Switzerland's largest meat producer, invested 7.5 million Swiss francs in Dutch startup Mosa Meat which specializes in synthetic meat production. Rather than procuring its meat from a feedlot and slaughterhouse, Mosa manufactures meat using tissue generation similar to processes used in regenerative medicine. Now that it seems environmental concerns are a "front-burner" issue again in public discourse, the investment seems well advised providing an alternative to traditionally produced meat products. While many proponents of Mosa's technology see it solving many environmental issues associated with traditional meat production, like CO2 emissions and energy waste, it is not without its detractors. Health advocates have been calling for an overall reduction in meat based protein consumption in the west for decades that is associated with increased consumption of medical services related to chronic diseases and obesity.