Biogen Idec Inc has announced plans to acquire privately-owned Stromedix Inc of Cambridge, Massachusetts for $75 million upfront, plus milestones, in order to gain access to an investigational antibody for fibrotic disease.
Venture-capital backed Oxitec Ltd of the UK has secured £8 million in new funding from a syndicate led by Oxford Capital Partners to finance further trials of a project designed to reduce populations of the mosquitoes that transmit dengue fever.
Zealand Pharma A/S said it is set to receive a $20 million milestone payment from its partner, Sanofi SA, following the successful completion of the global Phase 3 programme for its glucagon-like peptide-1 agonist, lixisenatide, for type 2 diabetes.
Venture-capital backed Pieris AG has received a €1 million German government grant to support the development of a cancer compound that targets the c-Met signalling pathway. The funds will be used for biomarker discovery.
Cytos Biotechnology Ltd has received approval from a court in the canton of Zurich to restructure a convertible bond valued at about $44.8 million. This follows a move to cut its workforce last August from 82 to10 and to reduce the size of its executive.
Wilex AG is set to receive up to €2.6 million from the German government to support the preclinical and clinical development of a small molecule cancer compound that targets the P13K signalling pathway.
A Norwegian start-up company,Targovax AS, has raised NOK 13 million (€1.7 million) in a Series A financing round to support the clinical development of a therapeutic vaccine against pancreatic cancer. The candidate product is a peptide vaccine that targets mutations on ras genes.
Wilex AG, which has an antibody treatment for renal cell cancer in a pivotal Stage 3 trial along with a companion diagnostic, has successfully completed a €9.93 million rights issue. Wilex is based in Munich, Germany.
Venture-capital backed Domain Therapeutics SA of France has received a grant from the Michael J. Fox Foundation to develop allosteric modulators for Parkinson’s disease. This follows a year-earlier licensing deal with Merck Serono, also for PD.
Amgen Inc has agreed to pay $1.16 billion in cash to acquire Micromet Inc, a developer of bispecific antibodies. Micromet’s key asset is blinatumomab, an antibody in early clinical development against acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.