Finance, Grants, Deals

Sandoz, the generics division of Novartis, has completed the acquisition of the Japanese business of Aspen Global Inc, expanding its presence in Japan, the third largest market for generics in the world. Aspen’s portfolio consists of about 20 products with a focus on ana+esthetics and specialty medicines. The acquisition gives Sandoz a dedicated sales, marketing and medical organisation enabling it to deal directly with hospitals.

Sandoz is paying €300 million upfront for the assets and €100 million after the closing of the deal.

Quench Bio Inc, a start-up biotech incubated by venture capitalists, has been launched in Cambridge, Mass, US to develop small molecule drugs for chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The launch was announced on 27 January concurrent with $50 million in Series A financing.

Switzerland-based GeNeuro SA has raised €17.5 million in a private share placement, enabling it to complete a new clinical trial of its experimental treatment for multiple sclerosis temelimab. The trial will be conducted at the Karolinska Institutet and the Academic Specialist Center in Stockholm, Sweden and is expected to report results in the second half of 2021.

Autolus Therapeutics Plc has raised a gross $80 million from a secondary offering on Nasdaq to support the ongoing clinical development of its engineered T cell therapies for cancer. After deducting expenses, the net proceeds for the company were $74.2 million. Autolus is a portfolio company of Syncona Ltd and has a pipeline of candidate products for the treatment of haematological malignancies and solid tumours.

The company made an initial public offering of shares on Nasdaq in 2018 and went back to the market the following year to raise $100.8 million.

Adaptimmune Therapeutics Plc has returned to Nasdaq to raise new capital with an underwritten public offering of 21 million American depositary shares (ADSs) at a price of $4 per ADS. The issue raised a net $78.1 million after deducting the underwriting discount and other expenses. Adaptimmune made its initial public offering on Nasdaq in 2015.

Germany-based BioNTech SE has taken steps to strengthen its position in personalised cancer therapies with the acquisition of Neon Therapeutics Inc of the US for $67 million. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company was founded in 2015 by experts in neoantigen biology. The company’s lead product, NEO-PTC-01, is a personalised neoantigen-targeted T cell therapy posed to enter Phase 1 in patients with metastatic melanoma who are refractory to checkpoint inhibitors. Neoantigens are newly formed antigens that have not been previously recognised by the immune system.

Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH has entered into a partnership with Singapore-based Enleofen Bio Pte Ltd, to develop new therapies across a range of fibro-inflammatory diseases. The deal will give the Germany company access to Enleofen’s expertise in interleukin-11 (IL-11), a cytokine implicated in the disorders.

Eli Lilly and Company is to acquire Dermira Inc, a US medical dermatology company, for $1.1 billion in an all-cash transaction in order to expand its immunology pipeline. Dermira’s most advanced clinical programme, lebrikizumab, is a monoclonal antibody for moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis. The company also has a marketed product for the topical treatment of primary axillary hyperhidrosis, a rare sweating disorder.

The Swedish company Galecto Biotech AB is to merge with PharmAkea Inc of San Diego, US in order to build critical mass in the fields of fibrosis and cancer. Galecto has a pipeline of drug candidates targeting galectin-3, a protein linked with organ fibrosis. Financial details of the merger were not disclosed.

Evotec SE, which claims to have one of the industry’s biggest platforms for developing induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, has further expanded its partnership activities in the field. Under a 2016 agreement with Celgene Corp, now part of Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, Evotec has been using iPS cells to identify prospective treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. This agreement has now been broadened to include additional cell lines. The cell lines were not identified.