Finance, Grants, Deals

Leyden Laboratories BV, a Dutch start-up, has launched an ambitious plan to develop a portfolio of intranasal prophylactic medicines to prevent infection from a host of viruses including coronaviruses. On 25 March, the company announced the closing of a Series A financing of €40 million from a syndicate led by GV (formerly Google Ventures), to advance its programme.

In a statement, Koenraad Wiedhaup, chief executive of the new company, said the goal is to “develop products that provide immediate protection against existing, mutating and new viruses.”

Gyroscope Therapeutics Ltd, a gene therapy company founded by Syncona Ltd, has received $148 million in a Series C financing round to advance its lead product for geographic atrophy secondary to age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of blindness. The financing was led by Forbion Capital Partners with a significant contribution from Syncona, which now owns 54% of the company.

Innovation in the life sciences has increased dramatically in recent years creating a virtuous circle in which more money is coming into biotech and biotech is pioneering more new technologies. This was the conclusion of investment professionals and company executives speaking at the annual Sachs European Life Sciences Forum which took place on Zoom on 10 March.

Exscientia Ltd has enlisted the support of one of the world’s largest asset managers, BlackRock Inc, to support its expansion in artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery. Funds managed by BlackRock joined the company’s Series C investment round in early March, bringing total proceeds to the UK company up to $100 million.

UK-based Oxular Ltd has secured $37 million in venture finance to advance its lead product for diabetic macular edema (DME) into Phase 2 as well as support earlier stage ophthalmologic products. The venture capital firm Forbion led the financing, which included existing investors IP Group, NeoMed and V-Bio Ventures.

Merck & Co Inc is to acquire Pandion Therapeutics Inc, a clinical-stage biotechnology company with candidate products designed to treat autoimmune diseases. Merck will tender $60 in cash for each share of the company, representing a deal value of $1.85 billion. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2021.

UCB SA of Belgium and Microsoft Corp have entered into a multi-year strategic collaboration to use UCB’s medicinal capabilities and artificial intelligence from Microsoft to discover new drugs. The collaboration builds on work the two companies have already done as part of the Covid Moonshot project, an international effort to develop an antiviral treatment for Covid-19. Financial terms of the collaboration were not disclosed.

In just 12 years – the time it takes to develop a new chemical entity – argenx NV has grown from Dutch start-up into an internationally recognised biopharma enterprise. The company has a portfolio of wholly-owned and partnered antibody therapeutics, the first of which has been submitted for review to the US Food and Drug Administration. On 5 February, it announced gross proceeds of $1.15 billion from a global share offering, managed by J.P. Morgan and three other leading US financial institutions.

Less than a year after signing a lucrative licensing deal with Eli Lilly and Co, UK-based Evox Therapeutics Ltd has completed a Series C financing round to advance therapeutics based on exosomes into the clinic. The £69.2 million financing was led by Redmile Group, a US hedge fund, which was joined by the new investors OrbiMed Healthcare Fund Management and the Invus Group LLC.

Proceeds of the financing will enable several compounds directed at rare disease to progress towards clinical development

The Medicxi investment group has launched Centessa Pharmaceuticals Ltd, a new pharmaceutical company that brings together a group of diverse assets in order to develop them at scale with oversight from experts in the field. The launch marks a new stage in the Medicxi investment model that focuses on developing new drugs from single assets with a minimum of infrastructure in order to increase productivity and improve the return on investment.