Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines arm of Sanofi SA, has reached an agreement with Translate Bio of the US to expand a two-year old collaboration in order to bring forward a candidate vaccine for COVID-19. The vaccine candidate uses messenger RNA (mRNA) technology and is expected to be ready for a first human trial in the fourth quarter of this year.
Epidarex Capital, the Edinburgh, UK-based venture capital firm, has closed a new fund to support early-stage UK life science companies. The fund raised £102.1 million at the close, of which £50 million represents a commitment from Enterprise Capital Funds, a government-supported scheme to help the growth of young businesses.
Oxford Biomedica Plc has raised a gross £40 million in a private share placement to support its ongoing gene therapy business which includes the manufacture of lentiviral vector for the Novartis product Kymriah. Kymriah was the first chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy to be approved for cancer. Most recently, Oxford Biomedica secured a contract with AstraZeneca Plc to manufacture an adenoviral vector based vaccine for COVID-19.
ISA Pharmaceuticals BV of the Netherlands has expanded a collaboration with Regeneron Inc to include a new trial for the companies’ combination treatment for human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV16)-induced cancers. The trial will recruit patients with oropharyngeal cancer, a type of head and neck cancer that affects tissues of the throat.
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.