Finance, Grants, Deals

GlaxoSmithKline Plc is to pay up to $3.3 billion to acquire Affinivax, Inc of Cambridge, US, which has a portfolio of vaccines to prevent pneumococcal disease and other infections. The deal is one of the company’s largest, and consists of an upfront payment of $2.1 billion plus two milestone payments of $0.6 billion each. The milestone payments will be dispensed upon the completion of certain paediatric clinical studies. Affinivax’s lead product, AFX3772, is in Phase 2 for the prevention of infection from Streptococcus pneumoniae, a gram-positive bacterium.

A Cambridge, UK company investigating the therapeutic potential of antisense long non-coding RNAs has raised an additional £4.6 million in seed financing to accelerate the development of its product portfolio focused on diseases of the central nervous system and ophthalmology indications. Transine Therapeutics Ltd announced the additional funding on 31 May, bringing total proceeds from the seed round up to £13.7 million. The round was led by new investor Epidarex Capital with participation from existing investor the Dementia Discovery Fund.

Evotec SE has expanded its capabilities in the field of cell therapy with the acquisition of the Italian company Rigenerand Srl, a 2009 spin-off of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. The acquisition, valued at €23 million, comes within weeks of Evotec’s agreement with Sernova Corp of Canada to develop a beta cell replacement therapy for diabetes. The prospective therapy will use induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells produced by Evotec, combined with a pouch developed by Sernova.

Syncona Ltd has increased its holding in SwanBio Therapeutics Inc, a gene therapy company, as part of a $56 million Series B financing to support the company’s lead product for adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN), a rare, inherited neurodegenerative disease. Mass General Brigham Ventures of Cambridge, US also invested in the round.

OMass Therapeutics Ltd, a 2016 spin-out from the University of Oxford, has raised $100 million in a Series B financing round to advance its pipeline of drugs for immunology disorders and rare diseases. Proceeds from the financing will advance the company’s small molecule therapeutics towards clinical trials. The pipeline includes drugs targeting solute carriers, a group of membrane transport proteins, and G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), a diverse group of cell surface receptors.

Bristol Myers Squibb Co has extended its drug discovery partnership with Evotec SE in protein degradation – less than a year after the two companies decided to work together longer on a separate project in neurodegeneration. The latest agreement, announced on 10 May, will see BMS and Evotec collaborate for an additional eight years to develop a pipeline of molecular glue degraders. These are small, drug-like compounds that can promote the degradation of disease-causing proteins.

MitoRx Therapeutics Ltd, a new UK company focused on degenerative diseases, has completed a seed financing round in order to develop therapeutics that reverse mitochondrial dysfunction. Investors in the new company include the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund, Wren Capital, Oxford Technology Management as well as angel investors. The size of the financing was not disclosed.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is to provide €15 million to IRBM SpA of Italy to expand research into new vaccines and treatments for SARS-CoV-2 and future coronaviruses. The funding, which runs through to 2024 will increase vaccine production capacity and prepare for future outbreaks of infectious diseases. It comes at a time when vaccine companies elsewhere are also bolstering manufacturing capacity in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc is to acquire Checkmate Pharmaceuticals Inc, a US oncology company with a clinical asset under investigation for the treatment of a number of cancers. Regeneron, which is a producer of antibody therapeutics, has built a pharmaceutical presence in a wide range of disease areas including inflammatory conditions, cardiovascular disease, pain, and cancer.

GlaxoSmithKline Plc is to acquire the specialty oncology company Sierra Oncology Inc which is poised to make a regulatory submission for its lead product momelotinib in the US in the second quarter. A submission to the European Medicines agency is anticipated in the second half of 2022. Momelotinib has been developed to treat patients with myelofibrosis with anaemia. The acquisition has been valued at $1.9 billion.