Probiodrug AG, a German specialist in Alzheimer’s disease, has raised €22.5 million with an initial public offering of its shares on the Amsterdam Euronext exchange. The offering of 1,524,205 shares was priced at €15.25 per share. Kempen & Co acted as the bookrunner.
Bavarian Nordic A/S, which for years has supplied the US government with smallpox vaccine for its emergency stockpile, has secured a major new deal with Johnson & Johnson Inc to develop a vaccine against the Ebola and Marburg viruses and explore additional disease targets.
DBV Technologies SA, which is developing a patch for peanut allergies, has raised about €104.5 million in an international share offering most of which was in American depositary shares on Nasdaq in the US.
Forendo Pharma OY of Finland has secured €12 million from a syndicate of investors including Novartis Venture Fund and MS Ventures to bring a candidate drug for endometriosis into the clinic. The drug inhibits the enzyme 17-beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 1.
Shire Plc said that it has agreed with AbbVie Inc to end their proposed merger, and that a break fee of $1.635 billion is now payable to it. The Dublin, Ireland-based company said it was well positioned to continue as an independent business.
Bicycle Therapeutics of the UK has raised £20 million in equity financing to bring its candidate peptide therapeutics into clinical development in cancer indications. The technology combines features of both antibodies and small-molecule drugs.
AbbVie Inc said that its directors have decided to recommend to its shareholders that its £32 billion bid for Shire Plc be rejected. Shire had no immediate comment.
Shire Plc said that it would prefer to go ahead with its pending £32 billion merger with AbbVie Inc but if the US company decides not to proceed, a break fee of more than one billion pounds would become payable to it.
A newly formed German company, Rigontec GmbH, has found backers for a novel cancer treatment that makes a tumour seem like a viral infection, thereby prompting an attack by the immune system. The treatment involves neither live viruses, nor viral genes, nor particles common in oncolytic viruses, and therefore does not raise safety concerns common to the use of viruses, according to the developers.
Nextech Invest Ltd said that it has raised $40 million in the first closing of its fourth oncology fund but that its target for the final closing remains at $100 million.