Finance, Grants, Deals

The UK medical charity LifeArc has extended a research collaboration with Metrion Biosciences Ltd with the goal of identifying new compounds for neurological diseases using Metrion’s ion channel drug discovery technology. The year-old collaboration is being extended for a further 12 months.

“The success to date of this novel small molecule programme with Metrion is very motivating, especially as this lies in one of our three priority therapy areas,” said Justin Bryans, executive director for drug discovery at LifeArc. The therapy areas were not disclosed.

A French company that is working on antibody therapeutics for cancer indications has raised $53 million (€48 million) in a Series B round in order to take its lead product into the clinic. ImCheck Therapeutics SAS is developing a compound that targets a member of the butyrophilin family of checkpoint molecules and engages gamma delta T cells to fight cancer.

ViGeneron GmbH, a spin-out of the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Germany, has closed a Series A funding round enabling it to advance two viral vector-based gene therapy platforms and develop two programmes for ophthalmic indications. The size of the funding was not disclosed. It was led by WuXi AppTec Group and Sequoia Capital of China.

Novartis has moved aggressively to expand its cardiovascular portfolio with an agreed bid for The Medicines Company, valued at $9.7 billion. The US company’s lead product, inclisiran, is a small interfering RNA drug for the treatment of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and familial hypercholesterolemia. The Medicines Company expects to make regulatory submissions in the US before the end of 2019 and in Europe in the first quarter of 2020.

London-based GHO Capital Partners LLP has closed its second healthcare fund, raising €975 million for investments across Europe – said to be the largest specialist private equity fund dedicated to European healthcare. The fund was oversubscribed, exceeding its target of €800 million, the company announced on 20 November.

The Roche group has staked out fibrotic disease as a growth area with the planned acquisition of Promedior Inc of Lexington, Massachusetts, US for up to $1.39 billion. Promedior has a product for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) poised to enter Phase 3 which has shown an ability to slow the decline of lung function in a randomised Phase 2 study of patients with the disease. The drug, PRM-151, is a recombinant form of the human pentraxin-2 protein, reportedly with a potential to treat a wide range of systemic fibrotic diseases.

Germany-based Affimed NV has closed its previously announced offering of shares on the US Nasdaq market following the full exercise by underwriters of their option to purchase additional stock. A total of 13.8 million shares were sold at $2.50 per share raising $34.5 million. The closing was announced on 13 November.

Germany-based Affimed NV has priced its previously announced US offering of 12 million shares at $2.50 per common share. After deducting underwriting discounts, the net proceeds are expected to be about $28.2 million. The offering is expected to close on or about 13 November.

Based in Heidelberg, Affimed is a clinical-stage company with three ongoing trials in lymphoma. On 7 November, it announced US Food and Drug Administration approval for the start of a fourth trial in patients with advanced cancers expressing the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR).

A new UK-based company has been launched to explore the dark matter of the genome with the goal of identifying antigens for the development of off-the-shelf cancer vaccines and T cell receptor based immunotherapies. Ervaxx Ltd was founded on original research by scientists at the Francis Crick Institute in London and launched on 6 November with $17.5 million in seed and Series A funding from SV Health Investors and an undisclosed global pharmaceutical company.

Denmark’s Zealand Pharma A/S has expanded its capacity for developing peptide-based medicines with the acquisition of Encycle Therapeutics Inc, a private Canadian company with a preclinical asset for gastrointestinal diseases.