Horizon Discovery Group Plc, a UK service company, has agreed to acquire the combination high throughput screening business of Zalicus Inc of Cambridge, Massachusetts, bolstering its portfolio of research tools for the pharmaceutical industry.
Shire Plc has made its third move this year to strengthen its portfolio of rare disease medicines with the acquisition of San Diego-based Lumena Pharmaceuticals Inc which has two candidate compounds in clinical development for rare liver diseases.
AstraZeneca PLC has entered into a research agreement with the Tianjin Medical University in China to investigate the causes of cardiac fibrosis, a condition that can lead to heart failure. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
In the latest asset shuffle amongst Big Pharma companies, Merck & Co Inc has announced the sale of its consumer care business to Bayer AG for $14.2 billion. It will invest the proceeds into new assets including its checkpoint inhibitor MK-3475.
Shire Plc has moved to further strengthen its portfolio with the purchase of Fibrotech Therapeutics Pty Ltd, an Australian company specialising in treatments for fibrosis. This comes a little more than three months after acquiring the rare disease specialist ViroPharma Inc.
Enterome Bioscience SA, a French company developing diagnostics for diseases linked to the gut microbiome, has raised €10 million in a Series B equity financing from a syndicate led by Seventure Partners and Lundbeckfond Ventures.
The tau pathway is the focus of a new investment by Bristol-Myers Squibb Company which is planning to spend $175 million in cash and potential milestones of $550 million to acquire the privately-owned biotechnology company iPierian Inc.
Silence Therapeutics Plc, a UK company exploring potential therapeutics based on RNA interference, has raised £11.4 million in a private equity placement with institutional investors and management to support its ongoing research and development activities.
MorphoSys AG is set to install its latest antibody discovery technology at a unit of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US as part of an alliance aimed at identifying new antibodies f
Pfizer Inc’s potential bid for AstraZeneca Plc appeared to be gaining traction following a Pfizer conference with analysts on 28 April and a formal declaration of interest to the London Stock Exchange earlier the same day.