Like many small biotechnology companies Intercell AG has had to abandon promising projects because they failed in clinical trials. Yet, unlike many other companies Intercell has product revenue. Its vaccine against Japanese encephalitis, Ixiaro/Jespect, had sales of €21.6 million in 2011.
Intercell AG, the Austrian vaccine company, has obtained €25 million in debt and equity financing from BB Biotech AG, a Swiss investor in biotech companies. The financing is being made through a wholly-owned BB Biotech AG subsidiary.
Action Pharma A/S has secured $110 million in cash from Abbott Laboratories Inc for its early-stage compound for the prevention of acute kidney injury associated with major cardiac surgery. The compound, AP214, had positive Phase 2b data.
Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd, a developer of gene sequencing technology, has raised £31.4 million in new funding in a private placement of its ordinary shares. Nearly all of the funds have been supplied by the company’s existing investors.
A new company dedicated to the discovery of small-molecule immunomodulators to treat cancer has been launched in the Walloon region of Belgium. The company, iTeos Therapeutics SA, has secured €9 million in Series A funding.
Novartis is to significantly expand its Sandoz generics business with the acquisition of Fougera Pharmaceuticals Inc, a US specialty dermatology business with net 2011 sales of $429 million. Novartis is paying $1.53 billion in cash.
Galecto Biotech AB has expanded its investor syndicate and raised a further €5 million to support the development of its small-molecule modulators of the galectin family of proteins. Total capital raised thus far is €10 million.
GlaxoSmithKline Plc has announced the start of a new academic collaboration to discover future drugs, this time with Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, US. The project will focus on proteolysis targeting chimeric molecules.
A syndicate led by Forbion Capital Partners of the Netherlands has secured $25 million in Series D financing for Argos Therapeutics Inc of the US to support a Phase 3 study of the company’s immunotherapy for metastatic renal cell carcinoma. The trial is being run under an SPA.
AstraZeneca Plc is to acquire Ardea Biosciences Inc of San Diego, California which has a late-stage product for gout. The agreed deal values the US company at $1.26 billion, including the target company’s cash balances. Ardea is listed on Nasdaq.