Finance, Grants, Deals

Novartis is to explore new ways of delivering gene therapies to the brain under a licence option agreement with Voyager Therapeutics Inc, a US company with adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsid technology. Under the agreement, the Swiss multinational may elect to license novel capsids for use in directing therapies against three undisclosed central nervous system (CNS) targets. Further out, it may exercise options for two additional targets. The goal is to develop gene therapies for neurological diseases that manifest in deep regions of the brain.

AbbVie Inc has acquired a Belgian neurology company for up to $1 billion in order to enrich its portfolio with assets designed to treat cognitive impairment. The company, Syndesi Therapeutics SA, was founded in 2017 through a partnership between UCB Pharma and Novo Seeds and supported by a syndicate of Belgian and international investors.

A Dutch biotech company, founded in 2020, has raised €39 million in Series A financing to accelerate development of a preclinical compound that targets blood clots in order to treat acquired thrombotic thrombocytopenia purpura (aTTP) and acute ischaemic stroke. TargED Biopharmaceuticals BV is a spin-out of the University Medical Center in the Netherlands. Its top management all have experience in blood disorders.

The financing round was arranged by an international syndicate comprising Andera Partners, Fund+, Hadean Ventures, Inkef Capital and Sunstone Life Science Ventures.

A UK company founded in August 2021 to build a portfolio of new treatments for ocular diseases has raised $65 million in a Series financing round. EyeBiotech Ltd was co-founded by David Guyer and Anthony Adamis, two experienced opthalmologists. The financing was co-led by Jeito Capital, Samsara BioCapital and SV Health Investors, which also provided the new company with seed funding and helped recruit the leadership team.

BioNTech SE has entered a three-year collaboration with Medigene AG to develop immunotherapies against solid tumours using Medigene’s proprietary T cell receptor (TCR) technology. This technology involves engineering a patient’s own T cells in order to display receptors that can recognise specific cancer antigens. Under the agreement, Medigene’s TCR discovery platform will be used in the development of cancer therapies against tumour targets nominated by BioNTech.

UK-based Oxford Biomedica Plc is to establish a gene therapy manufacturing presence in the US under a new agreement with Homology Medicines Inc, a clinical-stage genetics medicines company located near Boston, US. Homology has experience in the development and use of adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors while Oxford Biomedica has a lentiviral vector delivery platform.

Intellia Therapeutics Inc has taken steps to advance its genome editing technology with the acquisition of Rewrite Therapeutics Inc. Intellia will pay Rewrite shareholders $45 million upfront and an additional $155 million and research and regulatory milestones through a mix of Intellia stock and cash. Further financial details were not disclosed.

Indapta Therapeutics Inc of San Francisco, US, has raised $50 million in a Series A financing round to advance its technology for allogeneic natural killer (NK) cell therapies. This involves isolating and expanding a subset of NK cells known as G-NK cells, suitable for administration with a monoclonal antibody.

Merck & Co Inc has selected Curve Therapeutics Ltd as a new partner to help it discover and validate up to five new targets for the development of drugs for oncology and neurology indications. Located in Southampton, UK, Curve has a platform technology for identifying peptides contained in libraries that exhibit specific biological activity against selected therapeutic targets. Both the library and the targets are displayed in the cytoplasm of mammalian cells.

Intellia Therapeutics Inc is to out-license rights to its ex vivo Crispr/Cas9 genome editing platform to ONK Therapeutics Ltd enabling the Irish company to develop engineered natural killer (NK) cell therapies for cancer. ONK is developing off-the-shelf NK cell therapies. In addition to the genome editing platform, ONK will also have access to the US company’s lipid nanoparticle delivery technologies. The agreement will enable the development of up to five allogeneic NK cell therapies.