Finance, Grants, Deals

France-based MaaT Pharma SA has raised additional money through a government supported programme to accelerate development of a fermentation process for its microbiome-based products. Bpifrance, the national investment bank, has secured an additional €7.35 million for the company in an extension to an existing Series B financing round. This brings the total raised from the round to €25.35 million.

A Swiss start-up co-founded by a former executive at Roche has raised CHF 54 million in a Series A financing round to advance projects for orphan neurological disorders including four products in-licensed from Roche. The company, Noema Pharma AG, was launched in 2019 with seed funding from Sofinnova Partners. Now, less than two years later, it has a pipeline of clinical stage assets.

The German biotech Adrenomed AG has raised €22 million from existing investors to carry forward studies of adrecizumab, its clinical stage monoclonal antibody for the treatment of septic shock. The company is due to present new efficacy data for the compound at a conference on 2 to 4 December.

Destiny Pharma Plc has raised £10.4 million from a share placement and open offer which will finance the acquisition of an anti-infective asset shown to have promise in preventing infection from the bacteria Clostridium difficile. The new shares are to be listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange.

ReNeuron Group Plc has raised £15 million in a share placement with investors enabling it to expand an ongoing study of a cell therapy for retinitis pigmentosa as well as support work with exosomes. The placement was conducted on the AIM market in London and the results were announced on 24 November.

Entrepreneurs from Belgium, the Netherlands and the US have joined forces to develop a treatment that might dampen the hyperactive immune responses experienced by patients with Covid-19 associated acute respiratory distress syndrome. These cytokine storms arise when potentially lethal amounts of cytokines and chemokines are released by the body in response to viral infections. The goal is to treat these inflammatory reactions efficiently and safely.

Two European cell therapy companies have decided to merge in order to create a pipeline of allogeneic cell therapies directed against both solid and blood-borne tumours. The merger will see Sweden-based Immunicum AB take control of DCprime BV of the Netherlands through the issuance of 74 million shares valued at about SEK 600 million (€59 million). DCprime’s majority shareholder, Van Herk Investments BV, will hold approximately 43% of the combined company. Together, the new entity is expected to have funding to support product development into the beginning of 2022.

Novartis has entered into a licencing and collaboration agreement with Australia-based Mesoblast Ltd to further develop and commercialise remestemcel-L, an allogeneic cell therapy for the treatment of a number of inflammatory disorders. These include acute respiratory distress syndrome, and that associated with Covid-19. Acute respiratory distress syndrome is a type of respiratory failure characterised by the rapid onset of inflammation in the lungs.

A new venture fund designed to provide seed funding to start-up companies in the UK life science sector has raised £15 million. Start Codon Fund I LP was created by the Start Codon business accelerator. The limited partner investors in the fund include Novartis International AG and Cambridge Innovation Capital, a venture investor focused on opportunities in the Cambridge University ecosystem.

The Roche Group is to in-license viral vector technology from the German biotech company CEVEC Pharmaceuticals GmbH in order to increase its manufacturing capacity for gene therapies. This will specifically enable the company’s subsidiary Spark Therapeutics to scale up production of its marketed product Luxturna for retinal diseases which is delivered by an adeno-associated virus (AAV). Luxturna was approved in the US for a rare form of inherited vision loss in 2017. An EU approval followed in 2018.