Finance, Grants, Deals

Adaptimmune Therapeutics Plc has returned to Nasdaq to raise new capital with an underwritten public offering of 21 million American depositary shares (ADSs) at a price of $4 per ADS. The issue is expected to raise about $84 million, excluding any exercise of the underwriters’ option to buy more shares. Adaptimmune made its initial public offering on Nasdaq in 2015.

Germany-based BioNTech SE has taken steps to strengthen its position in personalised cancer therapies with the acquisition of Neon Therapeutics Inc of the US for $67 million. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company was founded in 2015 by experts in neoantigen biology. The company’s lead product, NEO-PTC-01, is a personalised neoantigen-targeted T cell therapy posed to enter Phase 1 in patients with metastatic melanoma who are refractory to checkpoint inhibitors.

Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH has entered into a partnership with Singapore-based Enleofen Bio Pte Ltd, to develop new therapies across a range of fibro-inflammatory diseases. The deal will give the Germany company access to Enleofen’s expertise in interleukin-11 (IL-11), a cytokine implicated in the disorders.

Eli Lilly and Company is to acquire Dermira Inc, a US medical dermatology company, for $1.1 billion in an all-cash transaction in order to expand its immunology pipeline. Dermira’s most advanced clinical programme, lebrikizumab, is a monoclonal antibody for moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis. The company also has a marketed product for the topical treatment of primary axillary hyperhidrosis, a rare sweating disorder.

The Swedish company Galecto Biotech AB is to merge with PharmAkea Inc of San Diego, US in order to build critical mass in the fields of fibrosis and cancer. Galecto has a pipeline of drug candidates targeting galectin-3, a protein linked with organ fibrosis. Financial details of the merger were not disclosed.

Evotec SE, which claims to have one of the industry’s biggest platforms for developing induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, has further expanded its partnership activities in the field. Under a 2016 agreement with Celgene Corp, now part of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, Evotec has been using iPS cells to identify prospective treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. This agreement has now been broadened to include additional cell lines. The cell lines were not identified.

A venture capital fund set up in 2018 to invest in early-stage companies with novel antibiotic programmes is to dispense nearly $12 million to companies in France and the US. They are Mutabilis SA, which is developing antibacterials against Gram-negative infections and IBT Vaccines, a subsidiary of Integrated Biotherapeutics Inc, which has an experimental vaccine for Staphylococcus aureus in development.

Expedeon AG has completed the sale of its proteomics and immunology business to Abcam Plc of the UK for €120 million, leading to a repositioning of the company as a provider of genomics services. Based in Heidelberg, Germany, Expedeon will in future focus on manufacturing DNA for use in gene therapies and gene-based vaccines. It will henceforth go by the name 4basebio AG and will continue to be listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

Syncona Ltd has committed $80 million in new capital to Freeline Therapeutics Ltd which has a candidate gene therapy for haemophilia B in early clinical development. The Series C financing consists of two tranches, of which the first $40 million is being dispensed to support an expansion of manufacturing and clinical development activities, Freeline announced on 19 December.

France-based Truffle Capital has raised €250 million for a new life science fund that will invest in medical technologies using minimal intervention to treat major diseases such as heart disease. The closing of the BioMedTech fund was announced on 18 December. It is one of two new Truffle ventures, the second being a €140 million fund for banking and insurance innovation.