Galapagos NV is to acquire two companies with a presence in cell therapy as it takes steps to broaden its business under new leadership. The Dutch company has reached separate agreements to purchase CellPoint BV, a manufacturing company in the Netherlands, and AboundBio Inc, a US drug discovery company with an antibody library and antibody engineering capabilities.
A France-based company advancing a therapy for both solid tumours and haematologic malignancies has raised €96 million in a Series C financing round to establish clinical proof-of-concept for its lead antibody molecule. ImCheck Therapeutics SAS is located in Marseille and supported by a large group of investors including Andera Partners, Earlybird Venture and a philanthropy fund managed by the US Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Two French companies have joined forces to co-develop manufacturing technologies for AAV-based gene therapies. Coave Therapeutics is to contribute its expertise on viral vectors to the collaboration, while ABL, a contract development and manufacturing organisation, will provide production skills and laboratory space in Lyon.
The Vienna, Austria company Proxygen GmbH has entered into a multi-year research collaboration and licensing agreement with Merck KGaA to develop molecular glue degrader therapies. This is the second collaboration involving molecular glue agents to be negotiated in recent weeks. In May, Bristol Myers Squibb Co extended a drug discovery partnership with Evotec SE to include molecular glue degraders.
A spin-out of the Dutch medical centre, Amsterdam UMC, has raised €5 million in seed funding to take a new cancer vaccine from preclinical development into human trials. CimCure BV has developed a conjugate vaccine that directly targets the tumour endothelium in order to arrest cancer growth. This reportedly unique mechanism of action was highlighted in a paper published in Nature Communications on 23 May 2022.
A syndicate of international investors has raised $75 million for Code Biotherapeutics Inc, a US company developing genetic medicines using a synthetic DNA delivery platform. The delivery technology is different from the conventional viral vector and is described by its developer as versatile and unimpaired by concerns about immunogenicity.
A Japanese company specialising in advanced therapies has received $30.3 million in Series B funding to advance a programme in tissue and organ repair. LUCA Science Inc is working on a mitochondrial replacement therapy that would restore cellular energy flow in damaged tissues and organs.
Bristol Myers Squibb Co is to acquire Turning Point Therapeutics Inc, a US oncology drug developer, in a bid to move ahead of its competitors in the field of treatments for non-small cell lung cancer. It is offering $76 per share of Turning Point’s stock in an all cash transaction valued at $4.1 billion. Turning Point’s lead asset, repotrectinib, is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor targeting the ROS1 gene in lung cancer. It is currently in a late stage clinical development.
Minoryx Therapeutics SL of Spain has raised €51 million in order to prepare for the regulatory review and possible market launch of its drug leriglitazone for the rare orphan disease X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (X-ALD). The company is preparing a marketing authorisation application for the European Medicines Agency and holding pre-registration talks with the US Food and Drug Administration. The EU filing would be directed at treating adult male patients with the X-ALD phenotype adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN).
Germany-based Immatics NV is to make its cell therapy platform available to Bristol Myers Squibb Co in order to develop a further cohort of immunotherapies for cancer. The collaboration, announced on 2 June, is an expansion of an existing partnership aimed at developing off-the-shelf cell therapies for solid tumours.