Finance, Grants, Deals

MaaT Pharma SA of France expects to make its first regulatory submission to the European Medicines Agency in June following a successful Phase 3 trial of its microbiome therapy and a capital increase of €13 million from a private share placement. The capital increase was announced on 27 March, not long after the company reported the latest clinical data for its therapy. The therapy, MaaT013, is being developed for patients with acute graft-versus-host disease with gastrointestinal involvement. 

Owlstone Medical Ltd is to receive an equity investment of up to $2.3 million from the US Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to develop a new breath test to detect a bacterial infection in patients with cystic fibrosis. The UK company has developed technology that can detect biological information from volatile organic compounds and respiratory droplets in breath. The newest project will involve developing a test for Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a Gram negative bacterial infection that can be particularly dangerous for people with compromised immune systems.

Novo Holdings A/S and Jeito Capital have co-led a new financing for Augustine Therapeutics NV of Belgium to support clinical development of the company’s candidate treatment for Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease, an inherited disorder that can cause nerve damage. The oversubscribed Series A financing raised a total of €78 million which includes an earlier sum of €17.5 million generated in 2024. Altogether 11 investors supported the company, including the US-based Charcot-Marie-Tooth Research Foundation. The closing of the Series A round was announced on 24 March.

A new biotech company has been launched in Seattle, US, and Singapore, with the goal of advancing the technology for antibody-drug conjugates - treatments for cancer that use an antibody and linker to deliver a cytotoxic agent to cancer cells. The company, Callio Therapeutics Inc, is developing ADCs that would be equipped with more than one cytotoxic payload. The company says this structure could increase the efficacy of ADCs, a drug class which is attracting developers across the industry.

Zealand Pharma A/S is partnering with the Roche Group to co-develop a candidate drug for obesity discovered by the Danish company with potential as both a monotherapy and in combination with other drugs. This includes in combination with an obesity asset owned by Roche. The drug is petrelintide, a long-acting amylin analogue which has delivered reductions in body weight of up to a mean 8.6% in early clinical studies. Amylin is a peptide hormone that restores sensitivity to leptin, a satiety hormone that enables people to feel naturally full after having eaten a meal.

A UK biotech launched in 2023 to use protein degradation technology to develop new drugs for neurodegenerative diseases has raised $31 million in seed funding from a selection of UK and US investors. The company, TRIMTECH Therapeutics Ltd, has a pipeline of small molecule candidate therapies for disorders including Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s diseases. The drugs are intended to target the body’s ubiquitin-proteasome system to mark proteins for degradation. The proteins are toxic aggregates associated with a range of neurodegenerative and inflammatory disorders.

An Israeli medical device company has been sold to Boston Scientific Corp of the US concurrent with the start of a pivotal trial intended to confirm the effectiveness of its lead product for hypertension. SoniVie Ltd has developed an intravascular device for renal denervation procedures. These procedures reduce activity in the renal nerves in the kidneys in order to help lower blood pressure. France-based Andera Partners has been a venture investor in the company since 2023. Separately, Boston Scientific has been a minority shareholder.

bluebird bio Inc is to be acquired by two private equity groups in a move to provide more capital to the gene therapy developer which was founded by two academics in 1992 and now has three approved products on the market. The transaction, which was announced on 21 February, will transform bluebird into a private enterprise from its current status as a publicly listed concern on the Nasdaq market. The buyers are Carlyle Group Inc and SK Capital Partners LP.

Novartis is to pay up to $3.1 billion to take full control of Anthos Therapeutics Inc, a Boston, US based company that it helped launch with Blackstone Life Sciences in 2019 to develop an asset for a cardiovascular disease. The company has a product in Phase 3 that was in-licensed from Novartis and is now being developed to prevent stroke and systemic embolism in patients with atrial fibrillation. Novartis had a minority stake in Anthos but will now take full control.

A German biotech company with genome editing technology has raised €8 million in seed financing to progress a nuclease-based product for cancer. Akribion Therapeutics GmbH is a 2024 spin-out of the industrial company BRAIN Biotech AG which supplies enzymes and proteins to the biotech industry. Akribion has in-licensed a nuclease from BRAIN which it says has promise for treating cancers. Its lead product will be developed for HPV-induced oropharyngeal head and neck cancer.