Finance, Grants, Deals

GW Pharmaceuticals Plc has raised gross proceeds of $252 million on the US Nasdaq market with the issue of 2.8 million American Depositary Shares (ADSs) to investors at a price of $90 per ADS.

The US biotech, Medivation Inc, has been successful at buying in new medicines for further development, but will selling itself be its most successful deal?

A new UK medical device company with technology that aims to improve current methods of ablating tissue in tumours has been launched with seed funding of £500,000. Ablatus Therapeutics Ltd is a spin out of the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

Nicox SA is undertaking another strategic reorganisation with plans to spin out its portfolio of marketed ophthalmology products in Europe into a new company in which it will have a minority stake. It will keep a R&D portfolio that includes two products in registration in the US.

Milan, Italy-based Dianax has received a €2 million European Union grant to support development of a portable diagnostic for the prevention and monitoring of diabetes. The device is designed to provide measurements of glycated haemoglobin.

Evotec AG, whose extensive drug discovery business is divided between services for biotech companies and proprietary work, has obtained non-exclusive access to the gene-editing tool CRISPR/Cas9 in order to strengthen its screening and target identification activities.

TiGenix NV has secured a development and commercialisation deal for a late-stage cell therapy for a Crohn’s disease indication with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd, generating an immediate upfront payment of €25 million while retaining rights to the product in the US.

BioGeneration Ventures BV has raised about €25 million at the first close of a new fund targeting innovative life science companies in Europe with a strong focus on the Netherlands. The target size of the fund is €50 million.

Netherlands-based NightBalance BV, which has developed an unobtrusive device for training an individual to avoid sleep apnea, has raised €12.5 million in a Series B financing. The proceeds will be used to market the product in Europe where it received regulatory approval in 2012.

In another move to generate income from out-licensing, AstraZeneca Plc has negotiated rights to two experimental dermatology drugs to LEO Pharma A/S of Denmark. The products are biologics and have not yet reached the market.