Company News

GlaxoSmithKline Plc has paid €250 million in cash for the Switzerland-based vaccine company, Okairos AG, which has developed technology applicable to both prophylactic and therapeutic vaccine products.

Prosensa Holding BV of the Netherlands, which is developing an antisense oligonucleotide for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, has made a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public share offering.

Ugichem GmbH of Austria, which has developed a new antisense drug technology platform, has raised €2.25 million from public and private investors to advance preclinical drug candidates for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases.

AstraZeneca Plc is to pay up to $443 million to acquire Omthera Pharmaceuticals Inc of Princeton, New Jersey, a five-year-old company with a single product – a late stage omega-3 free fatty acid composition to treat hypertriglyceridaemia.

A consortium led by Merus BV of the Netherlands is set to receive €5.9 million from the European Union’s FP7 programme to develop a prospective antibody-based therapy and screening tools for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

Roche has announced a new collaboration with Macrocyclics, a member of the Areva group, to continue development of a novel chelating agent for use in radioimmunotherapy. This is the second collaboration between the two companies.

Advanced Accelerator Applications (AAA) SA of France has raised €4.8 million in a placement of its shares with existing and new investors in order to finance an expansion of its manufacturing capacity for radioactive agents for Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging. Funds will also be used to investigate a second indication for the company’s radiopharmaceutical for cancer, Lutathera.

BTG Plc has raised a gross £106.3 million in a share placement with institutional investors to partially fund two North American acquisitions that will strengthen the British company’s presence in the hospital market.

Agennix AG said that its shareholders have voted in favour of liquidating the company in light of management’s inablity to find a buyer following the failure of its lead product, talactoferrin, in a late-stage trial for non-small cell lung cancer in 2012.

Novo A/S, the financing entity that is at the apex of Denmark’s pharmaceutical industry, has acquired all the share capital of Xellia Pharmaceuticals AS of Norway for about $700 million. One of the sellers was Britain’s 3i Group Plc.