Finance, Grants, Deals

France-based bioMérieux SA is to acquire Specific Diagnostics Inc of the US in order to strengthen its position in the detection of infections from antibiotic resistant pathogens. Specific Diagnostics, a privately held company, has developed an antimicrobial susceptibility test that can detect Gram negative bacteria directly from blood cultures in an average of five hours. This is said to help clinicians identify bloodstream infections and decide what type of treatment to deploy for patients, in particular, whether to use a therapy for multidrug resistant infections.

A new gene therapy project has been launched by ViGeneron GmbH of Germany and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc that would potentially result in the development of a treatment for an inherited retinal disorder. The two companies announced their collaboration on 6 April but did not identify the disease.

Carlyle, a private equity firm, is to expand its healthcare business with the acquisition of UK-based Abingworth LLP which has been providing venture capital to life science companies for decades. The transaction will combine Carlyle’s $301 billion of assets under management with the more than $2 billion in assets controlled by Abingworth. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Pfizer Inc has taken steps to expand its portfolio of treatments for infectious disease with the acquisition of ReViral Ltd, a UK company with candidate products for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection. The acquisition has been valued at up to $525 million. RSV is a respiratory pathogen which can lead to severe lower respiratory tract infections in young infants and older adults. There is currently no specific treatment for RSV infection, although the antibody therapeutic Synagis (palivizumab), approved for marketing in 1998, helps prevent serious lung infections caused by RSV.

V-Bio Ventures of Belgium has raised €110 million for its second life science fund in order to support young companies in the medical and agricultural sectors. V-Bio Fund 2 is being supported by many of the limited partners of the company’s first fund as well as new investors. The first fund was supported by the European Investment Fund as a cornerstone investor.

Germany-based ITM Isotope Technologies Munich SE has secured an equity investment of €33 million from two financial groups in order to advance a radiopharmaceutical for the treatment of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumours, also known as islet cell tumours. The latest financing comes on top of an earlier €25 million investment, bringing the total sums raised by the company for product development up to €58 million.

The two newest investors are Indigenous Critical Infrastructure Fund Canada and a private equity group managed by Portland Investment Counsel Inc.

Investor interest in microbiome-based therapies perked up in early March with the completion of a £50 million Series B round for Microbiotica Ltd, one of Europe’s leading developers of microbiome-based therapeutics. The financing round was co-led by Flerie Invest of Sweden and Tencent of China, with participation from existing investors Cambridge Innovation Capital, IP Group, and Seventure Partners.

Following on from the recent success of the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines, Nutcracker Therapeutics Inc of the US has raised $167 million in Series C financing to improve its RNA manufacturing platform and help the pharma industry develop new RNA therapeutics. The financing round was led by ARCH Venture Partners, which also has investments in Illumina Inc and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Precirix NV, a Belgian biotech company created in 2014 as a spin-off from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, has raised €80 million in a Series B financing round to advance a pipeline of radiopharmaceuticals for cancer. The technology involves the use of antibody fragments derived from llama to transport radioisotopes to receptors on the surface of cancer cells and kill the cells by irradiation. The antibody fragments are similar to those used by Ablynx, now part of Sanofi SA, to successfully build a portfolio of products for rare diseases.

On the back of a €18.5 million fundraising, Kither Biotech Srl plans to accelerate development of a candidate product for cystic fibrosis. The product, KIT2014, is currently in preclinical studies which are expected to complete in 2022. Soon thereafter, it will move on to a Phase 1/2A trial. KIT2014 is being developed as an add-on to the current standard of care. It is delivered directly to the lungs as an inhaled therapy. It works by modulating cyclic adenosine monophosphate levels inside cells.