The newly merged Swiss company, Evolva Holding SA, has signed a deal with the Roche group to discover compounds with activity on targets in oncology and anti-infectives. The financial terms were not disclosed.
A bioinformatics company with a focus on biomarker discovery has received seed funding from two UK venture funds in order to carry out its work identifying markers suitable for helping investigators select patients for clinical trials.
NicOx SA of France said it has raised €100 million in a two-step capital increase giving it the financial means to set up a sales force in the US to help commercialise its lead anti-inflammatory drug, naproxcinod, which is being reviewed by the FDA.
The value to Big Pharma of novel antibiotics has been underscored by AstraZeneca’s decision to acquire Novexel SA of France for a total cash consideration of up to $505 million. Novexel currently has two anti-infectives in Phase 2 development.
Innate Pharma SA, a pioneer in the field of cancer immunotherapies, has raised €24.3 million gross in a share placement supported by France’s Fonds Stratégique d’Investissement and existing investors, Novo Nordisk A/S and Alta Partners.
Silence Therapeutics Plc, a company that has moved quickly to capitalise on the new science of ribonucleic acid interference (RNAi), has announced plans to merge with the privately-owned Intradigm Corp of the US, which is in the same business.
Galápagos NV said that it has expanded its collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline to discover new drugs for multiple indications in the field of arthritis. The two companies are exploring drugs directed at the kinase target GT622.
Evolva SA of Switzerland has raised an additional CHF 21 million (€13.9 million) to finance its takeover of Arpida Ltd, creating a new publicly-listed company with a technology platform that uses synthetic biology to create new small molecule drugs.
GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to pay €33.6 million upfront and to make an equity investment of up to €84 million in Intercell AG in order to gain access to the Austrian company’s needle-free, patch-based vaccine technology.
Europe’s IPO market reopens. After remaining dormant since early 2008, the European market for initial public offerings (IPOs) of biotech companies has reopened with a