Flagship Pioneering, a US venture capital company founded by Noubar Afeyan, an Armenian-American entrepreneur, has closed its newest fund at $3.4 billion. Fund VII was reopened in April to current limited partners and new investors, and has now raised an additional $2.23 billion. This will enable the company to consolidate its work in company creation and development under one investment vehicle.
GlaxoSmithKline Plc has entered a new oncology pact in order to complete a group of assets that target receptors transmitting signals to immune cells. The collaboration is with iTeos Therapeutics of Belgium which was founded in 2011 to explore the tumour microenvironment and immunosuppressive pathways that affect cancer.
A new gene therapy company based in the Netherlands has raised €31 million in seed financing to advance a preclinical portfolio of potential treatments for muscular and neurodegenerative disorders. VectorY Therapeutics BV was launched in October 2020 to develop vectorised antibodies using an adeno-associated virus vector platform and antibody-based targeted degradation technologies.
Novo Holdings A/S, an investor in life science companies, has expanded its portfolio with the purchase on 15 June of a majority stake in BBI Group, a supplier of products and services to the global life science and diagnostics industries. The deal is valued at more than £400 million. Novo is buying the company from Exponent Private Equity LLP.
A Belgian start-up company with technology for targeting misfolded proteins closed a €18.3 million Series A financing round in early June. Amyl Therapeutics BV has a preclinical portfolio of therapeutics intended to treat amyloidosis, a group of diseases associated with the build-up of the abnormal amyloid protein in organs of the body. The targets of the company’s research are progressive peripheral and neurodegenerative rare diseases. The company did not identify the diseases by name.
The Swedish biotech Modus Therapeutics Holding AB has entered into a partnership with a team at Imperial College London, UK to investigate the compound sevuparin in patients with severe malaria. Modus is currently developing sevuparin for sepsis and septic shock, life-threatening conditions caused by the body’s reaction to an infection. The company has now extended its research to do more work in malaria.
Verona Pharma Plc has agreed to grant exclusive rights to Nuance Pharma Ltd of Shanghai, China for its respiratory treatment ensifentrine in exchange for an upfront payment of $25 million in cash and other considerations. The rights relate to the development and commercialisation of ensifentrine in mainland China and adjacent territories. Ensifentrine is an investigational therapy, currently in a global Phase 3 programme for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Late-stage clinical trials are currently underway at sites in the US, Europe and South Korea.
A new application for therapeutic RNA is being explored by the UK start-up company Transine Therapeutics Ltd. On 2 June, Transine announced receipt of an extended £9.1 million in seed financing. The funding round was co-led by Takeda Ventures Inc and the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF), a specialist venture capital fund supported by private industry, charities, and the UK government.
The developer of a new antifungal agent designed as an inhaled therapy for invasive pulmonary aspergillosis, has received $92 million in new capital. UK-based Pulmocide Ltd will use the Series C financing to carry out a Phase 3 registration trial for the drug PC945, which is a triazole antifungal agent.
Innovative Molecules GmbH of Germany has raised €20 million from a Series A financing round to progress a treatment for herpes simplex virus, a microbe that jumped from chimpanzees to humans more than 1.6 million years ago and now infects around two-thirds of the global population. There are two forms of the virus, type 1 and type 2, which can present either as cold sores on the mouth or blisters on the genitals. Once infected, an individual has the virus for life, though in many people it remains latent.