Finance, Grants, Deals

Vedanta Bioscience Inc has raised $50 million in equity finance to advance candidate therapies targeting the human microbiome for the treatment of infectious and autoimmune diseases.

Ablynx NV, a Belgian developer of antibody fragments originating in llamas, has raised €74.2 million with a private placement of new shares.

Life Sciences Partners BV has closed its fifth fund, LSP 5, with a total investment of $280 million, comfortably higher than its initial target of $170 million. The fund will aim to invest in around 20 companies across the healthcare sector.

Novacyt SA, a listed French cellular diagnostics company, has raised €1.4 million from a private equity placement in order to help finance the expansion of its recently acquired UK company Primerdesign, which has technology for analysing bacteria and viruses.

Shire Plc completed its acquisition of Baxalta Inc on 3 June to create a global company focused on developing drugs for rare diseases and other specialised conditions. The $32 billion deal comprises payments in both cash and Shire equity.

Ryboquin Ltd, a virtual Scottish company with no salaried employees, has raised £1.3 million for the scaling up production of its lead product, Ryboquin ECP-102, which boosts the effectiveness of chemotherapy in cancer patients.

Nouscom SA, a new developer of cancer vaccines raised €12 million in a Series A financing round earlier this month to support the development of a portfolio of products based on oncolytic viruses and viral vectors. The company is based in Basel, Switzerland.

Aleva Neurotherapeutics SA, a Swiss company with a candidate device for deep brain stimulation, has obtained $18 million in Series C financing enabling it to prepare for the registration of its product in Europe in 2017.

The shareholders of Shire Plc have voted to approve management’s proposed merger with Baxalta Inc to create a global company focused on developing drugs for rare diseases and other specialised conditions. The $32 billion deal comprises cash and shares.

Angle Plc, a specialist medical technology company listed on the AIM market in London, has placed about 15.8 million new shares with institutional investors raising £10.2 million in order to commercialise a liquid biopsy test for cancer based on the detection of circulating tumour cells.