Pharm Exec's latest annual listing of the top biopharma players paints a stable picture of performance for the usual placeholders, but change and disruption to current business models could upend positioning in the years ahead.

Advanced Gene & Cell Technologies (AGCT), a resident startup of the Skolkovo Foundation’s biomed cluster, has received the first tranche of investment from the RBV Capital venture fund allocated to carry out Russia’s first clinical practice of genome editing to treat HIV. AGCT plans to use the investment, which totals 44 million rubles ($738,000), to draw up a raft of preclinical data to carry out pilot phase one and two clinical research.

New research has identified the culprit behind the wiring problems in the brains of people with schizophrenia.  When researchers transplanted human brain cells generated from individuals diagnosed with childhood-onset schizophrenia into mice, the animal’s nerve cell networks did not mature properly and the mice exhibited the same anti-social and anxious behaviors seen in people with the disease.

A mobile harness suspended from the ceiling is now equipped with intelligent motion analysis for tailored walking rehabilitation in people suffering from spinal cord injury, stroke and other neurological disorders affecting gait.