Finance, Grants, Deals

Vaccitech Plc, co-inventor of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine for Covid-19, has has made a regulatory filing in the US for an initial public offering of its shares on the Nasdaq market. The size of the offering had not been decided as of 11 April, but investors were reportedly looking for a valuation of around $700 million taking into account the wide distribution of the company’s Covid-19 vaccine and its portfolio of other prophylactic as well as therapeutic vaccines.

Sanofi SA expanded its portfolio of new technologies with the acquisition on 9 April of the US preclinical stage biotech company Tidal Therapeutics which has developed an approach for reprogramming immune cells in vivo using messenger RNA (mRNA). “We anticipate that this next generation, off-the-shelf approach, has the potential to bring CAR T cell therapy to a much broader patient population,” said Frank Nestle, Sanofi’s chief scientific officer, in a prepared statement.

Allcyte GmbH of Austria has raised $6 million in seed financing to advance its artificial intelligence (AI) platform selecting treatments for late-stage blood cancers. The financing round was led by 42cap, Air Street capital, PUSH Ventures, Amino Collective and VP venture Partners. It follows results from a clinical trial which showed that the company’s real-time analysis of live tissue from cancer patients identified treatments for these patients that proved to be effective in 55% of cases.

A special purpose acquisition company, known colloquially as a blank cheque company, has been launched by Life Sciences Partners (LSP) of the Netherlands, the first such company to focus exclusively on European biotech. Special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, are proliferating on Wall Street, fuelled by low interest rates and a demand from investors for innovative assets.

Future Planet Capital, a London, UK-based investment group, has acquired Midven Ltd, one of Britain’s oldest venture capital firms, with a view to expanding its network of academic and public sector relationships in the life sciences. Announced on 8 April, the value of the transaction wasn’t disclosed.

Artios Pharma Ltd has negotiated its second major collaboration in four months for the use of its DNA damage response technology to help a partner develop new drugs for cancer. The newest deal is with Novartis, which has agreed to pay the UK company $20 million upfront for access to the platform as well as research funding and up to $1.3 billion in discovery, development, regulatory and sales-based milestone payments.

The European Medicines Agency has concluded that unusual blood clots with low blood platelets should be listed as very rare side effects of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. But overall, the vaccine’s benefits outweigh its risks.

Leyden Laboratories BV, a Dutch start-up, has launched an ambitious plan to develop a portfolio of intranasal prophylactic medicines to prevent infection from a host of viruses including coronaviruses. On 25 March, the company announced the closing of a Series A financing of €40 million from a syndicate led by GV (formerly Google Ventures), to advance its programme.

Gyroscope Therapeutics Ltd, a gene therapy company founded by Syncona Ltd, has received $148 million in a Series C financing round to advance its lead product for geographic atrophy secondary to age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of blindness. The financing was led by Forbion Capital Partners with a significant contribution from Syncona, which now owns 54% of the company.

Innovation in the life sciences has increased dramatically in recent years creating a virtuous circle in which more money is coming into biotech and biotech is pioneering more new technologies. This was the conclusion of investment professionals and company executives speaking at the annual Sachs European Life Sciences Forum which took place on Zoom on 10 March.