Company News

ArGEN-X BV has recruited a new venture capital investor to its cohort of financial supporters enabling it to prepare to move a novel antibody fragment with potential for autoimmune diseases into the clinic.

Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners (EdRIP) has raised €192 million for its fourth BioDiscovery fund, increasing its investment capacity by almost 25% relative to its previous fund. Altogether EdRIP has now raised €450 million for life science.

Vienna-based Hookipa Biotech AG has raised €20 million from institutional investors to bring a vaccine candidate for cytomegalovirus into the clinic and to build a pipeline of products for oncology and infectious disease.

Novo Nordisk A/S, the Danish producer of diabetes products, reported a 3.4% advance in revenue to DKK 20.5 billion (€2.75 billion) in the third quarter and a 13.2% rise in net profit to DKK 6.4 billion.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Roche’s Gazyva (obinutuzumab) in combination with the chemotherapy chlorambucil for patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL).

Galecto Biotech AB has raised SEK 40 million (€4.5 million) in follow-on funding from its existing investors to progress its portfolio of candidate molecules that modulate galectins, a family of proteins.

Cytos Biotechnology Ltd of Switzerland said that it will seek shareholder approval for a rights issue valued at up to CHF 17.6 million (€14.3 million) in order to take its lead immunotherapy for allergic asthma through Phase 2b proof of concept.

AstraZeneca is maintaining is forecast for a decline in core earnings per share this year that is steeper than the expected fall in revenue. But workforce reductions and other efficiency measures have also freed up cash to invest in new products.

With growth from new products now overtaking patent-related sales declines, Sanofi SA declared that it had scaled the patent cliff at the end of September. Total sales, measured in constant exchange rates, were €8,432 million, up by 0.6% from a year earlier.

Ipsen SA, the French pharma company, said that drug sales increased at a slightly faster pace in the third quarter than during the first nine months of the year helped by a recovery of its primary care business.