Finance, Grants, Deals

Shire completes merger with Baxalta

Country
Ireland

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.

Tumour apoptosis enhancer gets funding

Country
United Kingdom

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 raises €12 million for new vaccines

Country
Switzerland

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.

Deep-brain stimulation device gets financing

Country
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.

Shire shareholders agree deal with Baxalta

Country
Ireland

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.

UK diagnostics firm in share placement

Country
United Kingdom

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.

MorphoSys joins forces with MD Anderson

Country
Germany

MorphoSys AG has joined forces with the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas to discover and develop potential antibody therapies against cancer. The German company will use its technology platform to generate antibodies against jointly selected targets.

Genentech extends alliance with Evotec

Country
Germany

The Roche Group subsidiary Genentech has extended a discovery alliance with Evotec AG that began in May 2010 for another three years to 2019 in order to continue work in identifying new small molecule drugs against targets identified by Genentech. Financial details were not disclosed.

Merus US IPO raises $55 million

Country
Netherlands

Netherlands-based oncology developer Merus has raised $55 million in an initial public offering (IPO) on the Nasdaq market, less than originally planned. Life Sciences Partners, the company’s venture capital backer, said the sums were raised in “challenging market conditions.”

Neovacs finds manufacturing partner

Country
France

Paris-based Neovacs SA and Boston-based Stellar Biotechnologies Inc have agreed to form a new company, Neostell SAS, to manufacture and sell conjugated vaccines to third parties worldwide as well as to support Neovacs’ proprietary therapeutic vaccine pipeline.