Finance, Grants, Deals

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.

Three European biotech companies have received loans totalling €100 million from the European Investment Bank (EIB) enabling them to advance imaging and cell and gene therapy technologies, as well as individualised medicines for cancer. The EIB is the long-term lending institution of the European Union and owned by the EU member states. The three biotech companies are France-based Median Technologies SA, Italy-based MolMed SpA and Germany-based BioNTech SE.

The Roche group has acquired commercialisation rights, outside the US, for an experimental gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare degenerative neuromuscular disorder. The deal was announced on 23 December and is with Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. It comes only days after Roche received regulatory clearance to acquire the gene therapy company Spark Therapeutics Inc.

Genmab A/S has expanded its antibody repertoire under a new research and collaboration agreement with CureVac AG to produce antibody therapeutics for cancer that have been developed using messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. The agreement includes an upfront payment of $10 million for the first product and a €20 million equity investment in CureVac, as well as options on three other programmes. The deal was announced on 19 December 2019.

Promethera Biosciences SA has raised an additional €7.5 million for its Series D financing round bringing total proceeds up to €39.7 million. The financing was led by new investors Sony Innovation Fund by IGV and Pegasus Tech Ventures. It will be used to further advance the company’s clinical programmes in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and acute-on-chronic liver failure as well as to support the company’s growth in Asia.

Sanofi SA’s decision to acquire the US synthetic biology company Synthorx Inc gives the French multinational new tools for expanding its oncology portfolio. Sanofi announced the takeover on 9 December, just a day before its new chief executive, Paul Hudson, briefed investors on the company’s R&D strategy going forward. This will focus on rare diseases, immunology and oncology, while discontinuing research in diabetes and cardiovascular medicine.

Forendo Pharma Ltd, whose lead product is being developed for endometriosis, has signed an exclusive licensing deal with Novartis to use the same technology platform to discover new drugs for chronic liver diseases. The deal, announced on 11 December, is a further validation of the company’s technology for inhibiting a family of enzymes called HSD17B (17-beta-hydroxysteroid dehydregonase) which play a role in multiple diseases.

Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH is to enlist the help of a UK company specialising in artificial intelligence (AI) to identify new indications for rare neurological diseases. The partnership, with Healx Ltd of the UK, involves exploiting assets that are already in BI’s portfolio. The financial terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed.

Edinburgh, UK-based Epidarex Capital is to put more money behind company creation in the life science industry with the launch of a dedicated incubator, Epidarex Exeed Ltd. Epidarex Exeed will de-risk promising scientific assets and provide management support to prepare prospective companies for launch and Series A financing. Seed funding for the young companies will be provided by Epidarex Capital.

A Swiss company with a strategy for stimulating natural killer (NK) cells to treat cancer has raised CHF 15 million ($15.24 million) to complete the first human trials of a protein therapeutic for the potential treatment of both solid and liquid tumours. ImmunOs Therapeutics AG secured the funding from a syndicate co-led by BioMedPartners and Pfizer Ventures. ImmunOs is a spin-out of the University of Zurich and the University of Basel.