Alere Inc of the US, a provider of point-of-care diagnostics for chronic disease, is shedding some of its non-core assets by spinning them off into a newly formed company that is to be listed on the London Stock Exchange.
AstraZeneca Plc has rejected a sweetened takeover proposal from Pfizer Inc that values the company at £55 per share saying that the offer falls short of the company’s value as an “independent science-led company.”
Kymab Ltd of Cambridge UK has raised $40 million in a Series B financing round from its existing investor the Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Both institutions are investing $20 million each.
Horizon Discovery Group Plc, a UK service company, has agreed to acquire the combination high throughput screening business of Zalicus Inc of Cambridge, Massachusetts, bolstering its portfolio of research tools for the pharmaceutical industry.
Shire Plc has made its third move this year to strengthen its portfolio of rare disease medicines with the acquisition of San Diego-based Lumena Pharmaceuticals Inc which has two candidate compounds in clinical development for rare liver diseases.
AstraZeneca PLC has entered into a research agreement with the Tianjin Medical University in China to investigate the causes of cardiac fibrosis, a condition that can lead to heart failure. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
In the latest asset shuffle amongst Big Pharma companies, Merck & Co Inc has announced the sale of its consumer care business to Bayer AG for $14.2 billion. It will invest the proceeds into new assets including its checkpoint inhibitor MK-3475.
Shire Plc has moved to further strengthen its portfolio with the purchase of Fibrotech Therapeutics Pty Ltd, an Australian company specialising in treatments for fibrosis. This comes a little more than three months after acquiring the rare disease specialist ViroPharma Inc.
Enterome Bioscience SA, a French company developing diagnostics for diseases linked to the gut microbiome, has raised €10 million in a Series B equity financing from a syndicate led by Seventure Partners and Lundbeckfond Ventures.
The tau pathway is the focus of a new investment by Bristol-Myers Squibb Company which is planning to spend $175 million in cash and potential milestones of $550 million to acquire the privately-owned biotechnology company iPierian Inc.