The Roche Group has issued its first quarter report showing that global sales rose by 3% to CHF 11.8 billion (€11.3 billion) from a year earlier. However, the underlying performance was affected by a 6.8% rise of the dollar against the Swiss franc and a 12.1% decline of the euro against the franc.
Actelion AG, a specialist Swiss pharmaceutical company with a franchise in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), reported a 10% gain in revenue for the first 2015 quarter to CHF 515 million (€502 million) and a 24% rise in operating profits to CHF 190 million.
Thrombogenics NV has teamed up with the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (VIB) to create a new oncology company, Oncurious NV, which will re-start development of an antibody that was once licensed to Roche. Called TB-403, the antibody targets placental growth factor.
An initial public offering for Biocartis Group NV is under way on Euronext Brussels stock exchange in a book-building process that will determine the offering price. The Belgian company’s main product is a portable machine for the molecular diagnosis of cancer and other diseases.
Autifony Therapeutics Ltd has received funding to progress a second compound into clinical development that targets voltage-gated potassium channels in the brain. The indication is schizophrenia. It is already investigating a compound against the same target for hearing loss and tinnitus.
Horizon Discovery Group Plc, which provides services and products to the life science industry, reported a 79% increase in revenue to £11.9 million in 2014, a figure that includes income from two recent acquisitions.
Austria-based Nabriva Therapeutics AG has secured up to $120 million in new funding to develop a class of antibiotics that target Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogens that are resistant to current treatments. The Series B financing was led by Vivo Capital and OrbiMed.
One of Japan’s biggest industrial concerns, Fujifilm Holdings Corp, has expanded further into regenerative medicine with the acquisition of Cellular Dynamics International Inc, a developer of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS). CDI was founded by the stem-cell pioneer James Thomson.
UniQure NV has secured a gene therapy agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb Company in cardiovascular disease, its first major commercial deal since winning regulatory approval in 2012 for Glybera, a gene therapy for lipoprotein lipase deficiency.
Silence Therapeutics Plc, which is developing RNA therapies, has conditionally raised £40 million in a secondary share offering on the AIM market in London to further develop delivery technologies for RNA molecules.