Finance, Grants, Deals

Europe’s biggest public-private partnership in the life sciences, the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), is awarding the equivalent of €246 million to 15 research projects.

Three European venture investors have topped up a Series A financing for the privately-held US company, Anaphore Inc, which is developing a new generation of protein therapeutics.

Max Planck Innovation GmbH, the technology transfer arm of the Max Planck Society, has announced the launch of a new €100 million fund to invest in pharmaceutical projects originating from the society’s research organisations.

In a bid to attract more US investors, Intercell AG has launched an American Depositary Receipt (ADR) facility with the Bank of New York Mellon acting as the depository. Each dollar denominated ADR represents one Intercell ordinary share.

Vernalis Plc of the UK announced plans to raise £22.1 million in a fully underwritten share issue and separate plans for a 20-1 reverse split of its outstanding shares.

The French state agency, Oseo Innovation, has awarded €1.8 million to a privately-held molecular diagnostics company in Nantes to support a biomarker project aimed at predicting rejections of kidney transplants.

ProtAffin AG of Austria has raised €14.1 million in a Series B round which will be used to complete pre-clinical development and Phase 1 testing of a new anti-inflammatory compound. The round was co-led by Atlas Venture and SR One Ltd.

Pharming Group NV is the latest European company to enter into an equity funding agreement with YA Global of the US giving it an option to issue up to a total of €20 million in Pharming shares at any time during the next 36 months.

Active Biotech AB, a Swedish biotech company with five drug projects under clinical development, has announced details of its SEK 256 million (€23.8 million) rights issue scheduled for completion on 10 June 2009.

A spin-out from University College London (UCL) has obtained finance from GlaxoSmithKline to develop what may be the first product ever to combine a small molecule drug with an antibody in order to treat disease.