Within weeks of joining forces with the University of Oxford to develop a candidate vaccine for COVID-19, AstraZeneca Plc has secured manufacturing capacity to produce two billion doses of the prospective treatment as well as financial support of more than $1 billion from an agency of the US government. The company has harnessed resources quickly, even though vaccines are not one of its core therapy areas.
Genmab A/S has secured a broad antibody agreement with AbbVie Inc to develop up to seven new cancer products, putting it in a pole position to exploit new opportunities for therapies treating both solid tumours and haematological malignancies. Under the deal, the Denmark-based company will receive a $750 million upfront payment from AbbVie and is eligible for milestone payments potentially reaching $3.15 billion. Significantly, Genmab will have a 50% share of pre-tax profits from any future product sales as well as a say in decision-making.
Adaptimmune Therapeutics Plc has returned to Nasdaq for a second time this year to raise a net $242.8 million for its portfolio of engineered T cell therapies, the most advanced of which is in a Phase 2/3 trial for synovial sarcoma. The latest public share offering follows a capital raising exercise in February which generated a net $89.8 million.
Forbion Capital Partners has led a $62.5 million Series A financing round for a biotech startup which is working on treatments for neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders. The company, Prilenia Therapeutics BV, was founded in 2018 and is based in Naarden in the Netherlands and Herzliya, Israel.
Oxford Sciences Innovation, a venture capital firm partnered with the University of Oxford, has helped launch a new epigenetics company to develop a blood test for the early detection of cancer. The new company, Base Genomics Ltd, has received $11 million in seed funding to advance a new technology for DNA methylation sequencing.
The Austrian biotech company Apeiron Biologics AG has raised €17.5 million to expand a Phase 2 trial of a candidate drug for COVID-19. The trial has been launched in Austria, Germany, Denmark and the UK, and plans are afoot to open new sites in the US and Russia. The randomised, placebo-controlled study is expected to treat 200 patients with severe COVID-19 disease.
Sanofi SA has raised $11.7 billion from the sale of most of its equity holding in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc, a close partner and co-developer of some of the French company’s most successful products. These include the anti-inflammatory drug Dupixent (dupilumab) which has been approved in the US for four indications. The transaction closed on 29 May.
Amongst large pharma companies, Merck & Co Inc has kept its plans for responding to the coronavirus pandemic under the radar. This changed on 26 May, when the US company announced one acquisition and two collaborations aimed at developing both vaccines and a treatment for the disease.
Exscientia Ltd has raised $60 million in a Series C financing round led by Novo Holdings to expand its portfolio of drug candidates generated by the use of artificial intelligence. The company is a 2012 spin-out of the University of Dundee in the UK and is collaborating with several of the largest pharmaceutical companies to generate new small molecule drugs for a range of diseases.
Poxel SA has raised €17.7 million in a private share placement concurrent with the release of new preclinical data for one of its two clinical-stage compounds for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). The studies suggested a possible benefit for the compound as a combination therapy, as well an agent for treating other metabolic diseases.