A new venture capital fund backed by a syndicate of Swedish and Danish institutions, has been launched in the Nordic region to support promising life science companies. The fund, Eir Ventures I AB, is registered in Sweden as an alternative investment fund and will operate from offices in Stockholm and Copenhagen. On 10 July, it announced a first close of  €76 million.

Kiadis Pharma NV has secured its first major deal for a technology that involves the use of natural killer (NK) cells to detect and kill cancer. Under a collaboration with Sanofi SA, Kiadis will out-license rights to a preclinical asset for multiple myeloma as well as rights to two other undisclosed preclinical programmes.