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Biotech companies within the PPF Group, controlled by Czech billionaire Petr Kellner, are reporting advances in efforts to extend the lives of cancer patients. The companies Sotio and Cytune Pharma announced on Thursday that they had started the first trial dosing of cancer patients with SO-C101, a superagonist fusion protein of interleukin IL-15.

The Czech lottery company Sazka Group has submitted a bid to buy out the remaining shares in the Greek company OPAP, which going by revenue is the fourth largest betting company in Europe.

The Czech Republic’s year-on-year industrial production figures grew by 3.2 percent in May, 0.1 percent less than in the previous month, according to figures released by the Czech Statistics Office on Monday. The main drivers of growth were the automobile industry, as well as plastic and energy production. The country’s foreign trade surplus experienced a year-on-year rise of CZK 17.2 billion, reaching CZK 24.4 billion.

This June, 926 personal bankruptcies were officially registered in the Czech Republic, a drop of 341 from May and the lowest number in any month this year. But overall personal bankruptcy filings have risen to 2,227, the highest number since 2013, according to data from CRIF – Czech Credit Bureau.

Czech municipalities have become adept at managing their finances, suggests a study carried out by credit rating agency CRIF and cited by the news website iDnes.cz. The country’s local authorities as a whole have been in the black for the last eight years and no less than CZK 125 billion crowns lies in their collective bank accounts.

Around a million Czechs commute to work every day. However, most people resent time spent travelling to their place of employment and the majority of those who have the chance to find a decent job closer to home jump at the opportunity, the newspaper Právo reported.

Czechs are increasingly purchasing healthful foods thanks to growth in the popularity of active lifestyles and rising salaries, as well as the fact that retailers are now offering a broader selection of products than in the past, Czech Television reported.

The long-term modernisation of České Budějovice Airport in South Bohemia has been completed, regional authorities announced on Thursday. The airport received permission from the country’s Civil Aviation Authority allowing international public traffic on Wednesday. Full operation should be launched at the end of 2020.

Every seventh train in the Czech Republic arrived late last year, according to statistics published by the news website iDnes.cz. Long-distance and express trains experienced the most delays, while local passenger trains (which make the highest number of stops) proved the most reliable.

The city of Prague currently needs to provide flats for roughly 1.55 million residents, according to an analysis carried out by the company CE-Traffic. That is around 250,000 more than the population as estimated by the Czech Statistics Office.