Denmark’s Zealand Pharma A/S has raised DKK 492.5 million ($78.3 million) from its previously announced initial public share offering on Nasdaq in the US. The goal is to support the clinical development of two of its peptide therapeutics.
While new collaborations spring up regularly among developers of antibody drugs, existing partnerships also expire.
After securing rights to a compound developed by Innate Pharma SA in 2011, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS) has expanded its investment in innate immunity with the purchase of IFM Therapeutics Inc of Boston, Massachusetts.
Denmark’s Zealand Pharma A/S started its previously announced initial public share offering on Nasdaq in the US on 1 August with the goal of raising $86 million for the clinical development of two of its peptide therapeutics.
Evotec AG is to acquire another drug service company – its second takeover in less than a year – with the agreed purchase of Aptuit LLC for $300 million. Aptuit provides drug discovery and development services to companies in the US, Europe and India.
UK-based Nightstar Ltd has recruited David Lubner to its board of directors less than a month after raising $45 million in a Series C financing round to advance its lead gene therapy product for choroideremia, an inherited cause of progressive blindness.
Ablynx NV has secured a collaboration with Sanofi SA to develop products directed at immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. The deal, which includes an upfront payment of €23 million, is the latest endorsement of the Belgian company’s therapeutic protein platform.
Sanofi has taken steps to broaden its vaccine portfolio with the planned acquisition of Protein Sciences Corp of Meriden, Connecticut, US which has a protein-based influenza vaccine recently approved for the US market.
Syncona Investment Management Ltd, an investment company in which the Wellcome Trust has a significant holding, reported total net assets of £895 million at the end of its fiscal year on 31 March, up from £472 million a year earlier. This follows its merger in November 2016 with BACIT Ltd, an investor in diversified portfolios based in the Guernsey Islands.
A UK-based company that uses artificial intelligence for drug discovery has entered into a collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline Plc to discover candidate small molecules against up to 10 disease-related targets. Exscientia Ltd is a 2012 spin-out of the University of Dundee.