WATERTOWN, Mass. — Arranta Bio (“Arranta”), the leading microbiome contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), today announced the addition of a 130,000-square-foot facility in Boxborough, Massachusetts, to complement its existing facilities in Watertown, Massachusetts and Gainesville, Florida, bringing the total manufacturing capacity at Arranta to over 230,000 square feet. Arranta closed an oversubscribed Series B equity financing from its current investors to fund the expansion.

LOS ANGELES — Calibre Scientific is pleased to announce the acquisition of HUBERLAB, a premier supplier of diversified products to laboratories in Switzerland. HUBERLAB establishes an important distribution hub for Calibre Scientific, joining BIOZOL and Dianova to expand Calibre Scientific’s representation in the DACH region.

STAMFORD, Conn, and ST. GALLEN, Switzerland — Cara Therapeutics (Nasdaq:CARA) and Vifor Pharma today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted and granted Priority Review for the New Drug Application (NDA) for KORSUVA™ (difelikefalin) solution for injection for the treatment of moderate-to-severe pruritus in hemodialysis patients. The PDUFA target action date for KORSUVA is August 23, 2021. The FDA stated that currently it is not planning to hold an advisory committee meeting to discuss the application.

The FDA has cleared ControlRad’s set of add-on X-ray filters and image-processing algorithms, which together can help retrofit installed systems to reduce unnecessary radiation exposure without sacrificing scan quality.

By studying the simple nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, a team led by scientists at the University of Kent discovered a transcription factor—a protein involved in turning genes on and off—that seems to act as a master controller of the sense of hunger and related eating or resting behaviors in humans.

Diving deeper into the cancer testing market, Agilent Technologies aims to pick up liquid biopsy developer Resolution Bioscience for $550 million in upfront cash.

Getting an MRI has never been a walk in the park. Being fed into a large, almost unnaturally heavy machine powered by unseen forces—and almost always kept in the basement—is understandably unsettling, especially for a child. But it’s something Philips hopes to make a little bit brighter.

Moderna has poached major stem cell researcher Jonathan Hoggatt, Ph.D., to lead its hematology R&D as it gears up for a future outside of COVID vaccines.

Pancreatic cancer is highly aggressive, and it’s typically diagnosed late, resulting in few effective treatment options. Researchers led by China Medical University have found a possible way to inhibit this deadly tumor by targeting a molecular loophole in a cancer-promoting protein.

Sofinnova Partners has pulled in a healthy €445 million ($540 million) in its latest capital raise as the European venture capital firm seeks out late-stage plays in biotech and medtech.