Finance, Grants, Deals

Finland-based Kaiku Health Oy and Novartis have expanded their partnership in digital medicine in order to use machine learning to predict symptoms of multiple diseases. The two companies have been collaborating since June 2021 on a project involving the monitoring of patients with melanoma. Using Kaiku’s digital platform, data is collected from cancer patients and then fed back to healthcare workers to help them personalise care. Patients participating in the first project had melanoma and were receiving combination therapies which inhibit the BRAF and MEK proteins.

A spin-out of the Belgian university KU Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) has raised €30 million from a large group of venture capitalists in order to develop a new generation of vaccines. AstriVax NV will use the seed funding to bring a thermostable yellow fever vaccine into clinical development and further develop candidate vaccines for rabies and chronic hepatitis B.

Belgium-based eTheRNA NV has changed its business strategy in order to exploit the potential of its technology platform to provide services to the RNA therapeutics industry. Previously, the company’s focus was on proprietary messenger RNA (mRNA) drug development. But with the support of a new €39 million financing round, the company has changed its model to focus on services.

Merck & Co Inc has entered into a collaboration with the Cambridge, US biotech company Orna Therapeutics Inc to discover new therapeutics using engineered RNA molecules. Simultaneously, Orna has raised $221 million in a Series B financing round to accelerate development of its technology platform which includes a proprietary lipid nanoparticle delivery system. Orna calls its engineered RNA molecules circular RNA therapeutics (oRNA) because they have been transformed from a linear format into a circular format.

Verona Pharma Plc has raised $150 million from a public share offering on Nasdaq in order to support development of ensifentrine, its small molecule drug for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The UK company recently completed the first of two Phase 3 trials of ensifentrine in preparation for a possible regulatory submission to the US Food and Drug Administration in the first half of 2023.

GlaxoSmithKline Plc has obtained an exclusive option to co-develop and commercialise an experimental antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) that is designed to activate the innate immune system in order to fight cancers expressing the HER2 protein. The partner is Mersana Therapeutics Inc of Cambridge, US which has a pipeline of clinical and preclinical ADCs.

Merck & Co Inc has entered into a multi-year research collaboration with Cerevance Inc, a six-year-old neuroscience company, to identify novel targets for Alzheimer’s disease. Cerevance was launched by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd and Lightstone Ventures in 2016 to develop novel therapeutics for neurological and psychiatric disorders.

Gilead Sciences Inc is to spend $405 million to acquire MiroBio Ltd, a 2019 University of Oxford spin-out, which has developed a group of medicines designed to restore balance to the immune system. The technology is based on antibodies that stimulate immune inhibitory receptors in order to suppress inflammation. The target diseases are autoimmune disorders.

F2G Ltd has raised $70 million in venture capital finance to advance its antifungal agent, olorofim, which has shown promise in treating invasive Aspergillosis, a fungal infection affecting high-risk immunosuppressed populations. Olorofim is completing a Phase 2b study and poised to start Phase 3. It has already received a breakthrough therapy designation from the Food and Drug Administration and plans to make a US regulatory filing by the end of 2022.

Switzerland-based Addex Therapeutics Ltd has raised $4.2 million in equity finance in order to carry forward clinical and pre-clinical programmes directed at neurological disorders. The financing was arranged through Armistice Master Fund Ltd, an institutional investor, and was announced on 26 July. It makes a significant contribution to the company’s cash position which was CHF 8.8 million ($9.24 million) on 30 June, by extending cash well into 2023.