NightstaRx Ltd, a 2014 spinout from the University of Oxford, has raised $35 million in a Series B financing round to further develop a candidate gene therapy for choroideremia, an inherited form of progressive blindness.
It is now widely believed that people who are carriers of a gene called apolipoprotein E are at a greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease than those who do not. This does not mean that all carriers of the gene will develop the disease. But the risk is there, which is why an increasing number of companies are focusing their attention on this patient population to find out whether a pharmaceutical intervention could make a difference to their lives.
Sanofi SA has updated its medium-term business strategy to warn investors not to expect any ‘meaningful’ growth in profits over the next two years. Concurrently, it disclosed plans to explore options for its Merial animal healthcare and its European generic medicines businesses.
AstraZeneca Plc has taken steps to shore up its portfolio of drugs for cardiovascular and metabolic disease with the agreed acquisition of ZS Pharma Inc of the US which has a product under review at the Food and Drug Administration for treating hyperkalaemia.
H. Lundbeck A/S produced good sales figures for the third quarter and first nine months but its costs were adversely affected by a change in accounting policies and charges related to restructuring.
BioNTech AG, a German company with messenger RNA technology suitable for human therapeutics, has signed a multi-year licensing deal with Sanofi SA to discover and develop up to five cancer immunotherapies.
A drug-discovery partner for many years, MorphoSys AG is putting a new emphasis on developing its proprietary portfolio with the goal of commercialising its lead antibody therapy for non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas (NHL) later in the decade.
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a new combination therapy for patients infected with HIV-1 that contains a new form of tenofovir, an antiretroviral medicine already use in other HIV combination treatments.
Germany-based CureVac, which is developing vaccines based on messenger RNA technology, has raised $110 million in a private share placement to support development of its pipeline. Concurrently it is changing its legal structure to become a joint stock company.
AstraZeneca Plc continued to build its pipeline of new medicines in the third quarter and first nine-months in preparation for a period of renewed growth. Revenue for the nine months was $18.3 billion, unchanged from a year earlier at constant exchange rates, but down by 2% at $5.9 billion for the third quarter.