Oxford BioMedica Plc ended 2012 with a renewed focus on its gene-based therapies for eye diseases including advancing a collaboration with the Mayo Clinic to develop a treatment for chronic glaucoma. Revenue last year included a heavy contribution from ocular milestones.
Ablynx NV has announced plans for a capital increase of around €20 million through a private placement of shares with institutional investors. The price of the shares will be set via an accelerated book-building process.
Ablynx NV said the current year should yield new partnering deals and advances in its existing partnerships while keeping cash burn at a minimum. Reporting its 2012 results on 27 February, the Belgian company outlined three potentially value-creating events involving its pipeline.
Glide Pharma Ltd has completed a fifth funding round raising £14 million to scale up manufacturing for the production of its solid dose injector system which includes drug product and device. The new round brings funds raised to date to £24.9 million.
Sapiens Steering Brain Stimulation BV of the Netherlands and Germany, has raised €7.5 million from a Dutch investment group in an extension of its Series A financing round. The new funds supplement €16.5 million raised earlier from European and US backers.
A potential $6.6 billion bid for Elan Corp was made 25 February by a private New York investment firm called Royalty Pharma LLC and potentially rejected by Elan’s board of directors.
Merck Serono said that a Phase 3 trial of its integrin inhibitor, cilengitide, for the treatment of glioblastoma did not meet its primary endpoint of significantly increasing overall survival when added to the current standard of care, temozolomide and radiotherapy.
Ablynx NV is to jointly research the potential of its therapeutic proteins conjugated to cytotoxic drugs developed by Spirogen Ltd, in a new research agreement announced by both parties on 25 February. The research collaboration is set to last for up to one year initially with an option to continue.
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved the Roche group’s antibody-drug conjugate, trastuzumab emtansine, for HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer, ushering in a new drug class linking an antibody with a cytotoxic drug.
The European Medicines Agency is recommending approval of a new hexavalent vaccine developed by Sanofi Pasteur that is designed to protect infants against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, Hepatitis B, poliomyelitis and Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib).