In line with previously announced plans to diversify its portfolio, Novo Nordisk A/S has entered into a collaboration with a university spin-out, Embark Biotech ApS, to discover new treatments for obesity and associated metabolic pathologies.
A European research consortium in which Plasticell Ltd is a partner organisation has won a €3.7 million award from the EU to create cellular models of a group of neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, which result from the acute or progressive loss of cells in the brain. The goal is to produce patient-specific human neural models in test tubes, microchips or model organisms that can be used to discover new therapies.
Orchard Therapeutics Ltd took the next step in its quest to become a global gene therapy company on 31 October with an initial public offering on Nasdaq which is expected to raise $200 million. Founded in 2015, the company has already generated nearly $300 million in venture capital.
The IPO consists of 14,285,715 American Depositary Shares representing 14,285,715 ordinary shares at a price of $14 per ADS before underwriting discounts and commissions. The offering is expected to close on 2 November.
Novo Nordisk A/S expects sales and operating profit to increase in 2018 on a currency-adjusted basis as it takes steps to reduce its workforce and diversify its portfolio. The Danish producer of diabetes products is expanding into other biologic products as well as new delivery technologies for insulin.
Sanofi reported higher net earnings per share in the third quarter and is forecasting a rise for the year as a whole. But a continued decline in US insulin sales translated into a lower gross profit margin for the quarter and the first nine months of 2018.
GlaxoSmithKline Plc has issued improved guidance for adjusted earnings per share for 2018 following an increase in sales at constant exchange rates for the third quarter and first nine months, and a better operating margin. In a teleconference with journalists on 31 October, Emma Walmsley, the chief executive, highlighted sales of the company’s shingles’ vaccine Shingrix, the HIV medicines Triumeq and Tivicay, and new respiratory products.
Austria-based Themis Bioscience GmbH may raise up to €55.3 million in an initial public offering on Euronext Amsterdam and share placements in the US and elsewhere to finance the clinical development of its lead vaccine for Chikungunya, a mosquito-borne viral infection.
Denmark-based Galecto Biotech AB has raised €79 million in a Series C financing round to support a Phase 2/3 trial of its lead product for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic disease characterised by a progressive decline in lung function.
A prospective treatment for patients with schizophrenia, who have not responded to other drugs, failed to show statistical superiority in a Phase 3 trial compared with conventional therapy, H. Lundbeck A/S announced on 25 October.
The treatment, Lu AF35700, is a dopamine D1 and D2 antagonist with a high occupancy of the 5-HT2A and 5-HT6 serotonin receptors. The relatively low D2 receptor occupancy compared with the D1 receptor was expected to result in a better side effect profile.
AbbVie Inc is to take full control of a joint cystic fibrosis (CF) research and development programme with Galapagos NV with the goal of bringing a triple combination CF therapy to the market. Currently in early clinical development, the programme consists of potentiator and corrector drug molecules that are intended to increase the activity of mutated copies of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator protein that causes the disease.