In keeping with the trend among European biotechs to finance themselves in the US, Ablynx NV of Belgium has started an open-ended programme of selling its shares on the US over-the-counter market through the creation of American Depository Receipts (ADRs).
In the latest of a series of single asset deals among biopharma firms, AbbVie Inc has agreed to pay up to $805 million for rights to a mid-stage cancer drug being developed by Infinity Pharmaceuticals Inc with potential applications in a broad range of blood cancers.
Affimed Therapeutics AG, which is in the queue to make an initial public offering of its shares in the US, has in the meantime obtained $29.7 million from its venture investors and Perceptive Advisors LLC of New York City.
Medtronic Inc has paid €150 million in cash to acquire Sapiens Steering Brain Stimulation BV, a Dutch company developing deep brain stimulation technologies for the treatment of the movement symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
An indirect affiliate of Johnson & Johnson Inc, Cilag GmbH International of Zug, Switzerland, has acquired Covagen AG from Covagen’s venture capital and other private investors for an undisclosed amount.
The Roche Group is to acquire InterMune Inc of the US for $8.3 billion in cash in order to gain access to that company’s respiratory portfolio that includes a marketed product for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. The deal has been approved by the boards of both companies.
MorphoSys AG has broadened its portfolio of oncology assets with an agreement to in-license a candidate bispecific antibody targeting prostate cancer, one of the most common cancers in men. The deal, with Emergent BioSolutions Inc of the US, involves the co-development and commercialisation of a preclinical asset that has shown potential to activate T cell immunity against prostate cancer cells expressing prostate specific membrane antigen.
Skyepharma Plc has purchased rights to a respiratory technology platform from Pulmagen Therapeutics (Synergy) Ltd that could form the basis of a range of new products for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Prosensa Holding NV of the Netherlands has received a commitment for up to €5 million in funding to support the further development of its portfolio of antisense oligonucleotides for patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare genetic disorder.
Ablynx NV has received a €2.1 million grant from a government body in the Flanders region of Belgium to investigate the treatment of eye diseases with the company’s antibody-derived therapeutics which go by the name of Nanobodies.