The Roche Group has paid $175 million for full rights to danoprevir, a candidate protease inhibitor against hepatitis C, which it has been co-developing with InterMune Inc of Brisbane, California since 2006.
IS Pharma Plc, a UK a speciality pharmaceutical company with a turnover £14.2 million in the latest fiscal year, has raised £3.6 million through the issue of new shares to Abingworth LLP. Following the issue, Abingworth will own 13% of the company, The deal was announced on 6 October 2010.
Johnson & Johnson Inc and Crucell NV have reached agreement whereby the US multinational, through an affiliate, will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Crucell that it does not already own for about €1.75 billion.
To the oldest corporate venture groups such as the Novartis Venture Fund, the idea of sitting alongside conventional venture capitalists to organise funding for a young research-intensive company is nothing new. Novartis has been doing it for more than 14 years and now has dedicated teams in Basel, Switzerland and Cambridge Massachusetts to vet life science assets, as well as a three-year old options fund to invest in some very early stage companies.
A new UK pharmaceutical company, Convergence Pharmaceuticals Ltd, has raised £22.4 million in a Series A round in connection with its launch as spin-out of GlaxoSmithKline Plc. The company has a portfolio of analgesic medicines.
After failing to reach an agreement with Genzyme Corp’s management, Sanofi-Aventis has launched a public tender for all of the outstanding shares of the US biotechnology company that values the concern at $18.5 billion.
Agennix AG of Germany has raised €76 million in a rights issue in order to support the Phase 3 development of its lead product for non-small cell lung cancer, talactoferrin, and other programmes.
Privately-owned Okairos AG of Switzerland has raised €16 million in a Series B financing round to support development of its portfolio of T-cell vaccines against a range of infectious diseases. The round was led by Versant Ventures of the US.
Sanofi Pasteur will pay $55 million upfront to acquire privately-owned, VaxDesign, which develops in vitro models of the human immune system. There is an additional $5 million payment linked to the achievement of certain, undisclosed goals.
The two-year-old Netherlands-based company, arGEN-X BV, has received a €1.5 million grant to accelerate preclinical development of an antibody that targets interleukin 6 (IL-6), a cytokine that plays a role in autoimmune indications.