Intercell AG has completed a private placement of its shares, raising €15.2 million from the institutional investor BB Biotech, from Novartis, and from a number of other unidentified healthcare investors. The shares were placed at €2.30 per share.
F-Star GmbH, an antibody discovery company, has changed its top management and expanded its operations in Cambridge, UK in preparation for the advance of its bispecific antibody platform to the clinic. CEO Kevin FitzGerald is stepping down.
Evotec AG, which provides discovery services for biopharma companies, reported a 33% increase in revenue for the first 2012 quarter to € 20.1 million but incurred an operating loss of €1.3 million on higher investment in new services and infrastructure.
NicOx SA, which is seeking to build an eye-care business after its non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug for osteoarthritis failed to get regulatory approval, had a profit in the first 2012 quarter due to a milestone from its ophthalmology platform.
An advisory panel of the US Food and Drug Administration has recommended that the agency approve tofacitinib, a JAK inhibitor which has been developed to treat rheumatoid arthritis. A formal decision is expected in August, according to Pfizer.
Evotec AG and 4-Antibody AG have entered into a strategic collaboration to offer an integrated discovery and development service for companies that are developing antibody therapeutics. Financial terms were not disclosed.
GlaxoSmithKline Plc said that it will take its $13 per share cash offer for Human Genome Sciences Inc directly to shareholders and will not participate in that company’s strategic review. The unsolicited bid is valued at about $2.6 billion.
Like many small biotechnology companies Intercell AG has had to abandon promising projects because they failed in clinical trials. Yet, unlike many other companies Intercell has product revenue. Its vaccine against Japanese encephalitis, Ixiaro/Jespect, had sales of €21.6 million in 2011.
Intercell AG, the Austrian vaccine company, has obtained €25 million in debt and equity financing from BB Biotech AG, a Swiss investor in biotech companies. The financing is being made through a wholly-owned BB Biotech AG subsidiary.
Intercell had an active 2012 first quarter, increasing sales of its vaccine against Japanese encephalitis, while starting clinical studies in candidate vaccines for tuberculosis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Clostridium difficile.