Finance, Grants, Deals

Adaptimmune Therapeutics Plc has initiated a merger with a US cell therapy company in order to expand its pipeline and develop therapies for solid tumours. The UK-founded company, which has offices in Oxford and Philadelphia, US, is to combine with TCR2 Therapeutics Inc in an all-share transaction valued at about $103 million. The combined company will be 75% controlled by Adaptimmune shareholders, and 25% by those from TCR2. The company will list on the Nasdaq market under Adaptimmune’s stock symbol and be led by Adrian Rawcliffe, the current Adaptimmune CEO.

Pfizer Inc is reportedly holding talks to acquire Seagen Inc, the developer of antibody-drug conjugates (ADC), according to a report in The Wall Street Journal on 26 February. This comes several months after Seagen was courted by Merck & Co Inc, but these negotiations failed to conclude. The discussions with Merck reportedly centered on a deal worth $40 billion or more. Seagen currently has a market value of about $30 billion and would be expected to seek a premium over that price, the newspaper said.

The UK medical research charity, LifeArc, is one of three donors of a £1 million award to researchers at University College London, UK, who are pioneering new therapies for motor neuron disease. This is a neurodegenerative disease that affects the nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord resulting in a person’s loss of voluntary movement. The two other donors are the Motor Neuron Disease Association and the My Name’5 Doddie Foundation.

Rewind Therapeutics SA of Belgium has recruited a new investor to support its programme for treating neurological diseases by restoring the remyelination function of the central nervous system. Sunstone Life Science Ventures A/S, an independent European investment firm, has joined the syndicate supporting Rewind which includes Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, M Ventures and others.

Finland-based TILT Biotherapeutics Ltd has raised €22 million to advance its pipeline of oncolytic viruses to treat cancer. The immunotherapies have been equipped with molecules, including cytokines, that can be delivered locally and systemically to modify the tumour microenvironment and prevent the suppression of immune responses to cancer. The funding will enable the company to advance a group of candidate therapies, including the lead asset TILT-123, in clinical trials. This will be done in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors.

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, CEPI, a public-private partnership working to improve global access to new vaccines, is investing in manufacturing capacity in Africa. On 19 January, it announced an agreement with Institut Pasteur in Dakar, Senegal to invest up to $50 million over 10 years to expand capacity. This will include capacity to produce routine immunisation vaccines across multiple technologies, and reserve capacity to supply new vaccines in the event of an emergency. The countries covered by the agreement are in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

A new company in Scotland, UK has secured £2.4 million from KHAN Technology Transfer Fund I (KHAN-I) and existing investor Cumulus Oncology to pursue research into candidate molecules targeting DNA damage response. Nodus Oncology Ltd was founded in September 2022 to develop inhibitors of proteins involved in the repair of cells with DNA damage.

Evonetix Ltd, a UK synthetic biology company, has raised $24 million from a group of private investors to continue development of technology to enable the synthesis of DNA on a silicon chip. The latest funding is an extension of a Series B financing round that raised $30 million in 2020. The $54 million now available to the company will support development and commercialisation of the company’s semiconductor chips for multiple applications.

Grey Wolf Therapeutics Ltd, a biotech company launched in 2017 to develop a new way of targeting solid tumours, has raised $49 million in an oversubscribed Series B financing round to bring its first product into the clinic. The financing was co-led by Pfizer Ventures and Earlybird Venture Capital with support from new and existing investors. The company has generated a pipeline of small molecule drugs that inhibit enzymes which play an important role in the presentation of cancer antigens to the immune system. The enzymes are endoplasmic reticulum aminopeptidases 1 and 2.

Ahead of its launch as an independent Swiss company, Sandoz AG is strengthening its portfolio of generic medicines with the proposed acquisition of micafungin sodium (Mycamine), an antifungal medicine used to treat invasive candidiasis and oespophageal candidiasis. The prospective transaction is with Astellas Pharma Inc of Japan.