Finance, Grants, Deals

Netherlands-based AM-Pharma BV has raised €116 million from a European syndicate of investors to conduct a Phase 3 trial of a drug for sepsis-associated acute kidney injury – a condition for which no pharmaceutical treatment currently exists. The financing round will enable the Dutch company to complete development of its wholly-owned product recAP as an independent company. In 2015, Pfizer Inc took out an option to acquire AM-Pharma, but last year it let the option lapse. The US company still is a minority shareholder.

Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH has acquired a private Swiss biotechnology company with a therapeutic cancer vaccine targeting late-stage colorectal cancer. AMAL Therapeutics SA has developed a vaccine that is based on a fusion protein designed to activate killer T cells to target and destroy a tumour while boosting immunological memory to prevent a relapse.

Gilead Sciences Inc has struck a $5 billion deal with Galapagos NV giving it rights to the Belgian company’s suite of small molecule drugs for inflammatory diseases as well as an equity stake in the company of up to 29.9%. The agreement also includes a pledge by Gilead to not increase its stake in Galapagos for 10 years.

BioNTech SE has generated substantial financial support for its portfolio of personalised cancer medicines with a Series B financing of $325 million – one of the largest single private financing rounds for a European biotechnology company. The fundraising was led by Fidelity Management & Research Co with participation from both new and existing investors.

Based in Mainz, Germany BioNTech has a portfolio of messenger RNA-based product candidates, chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapies, checkpoint immunomodulators, antibodies and small molecule drugs.

Evotec SE has announced the launch of a new company, Breakpoint Therapeutics GmbH, to discover compounds modulating the DNA repair pathway as a source of potential treatments for cancer. In so doing, it joins a number of enterprises that see DNA damage response as a way of developing drugs for patients who don’t respond to existing treatments.

A science team from the University of Birmingham in the UK has reformulated the diabetes drug exenatide in order to treat patients with the neurological condition idiopathic intracranial hypertension. With a view to commercialising the discovery, it has assigned intellectual property rights for the reformulated drug to a new Australian-based company – Invex Therapeutics Ltd.

MorphoSys AG has upgraded its financial guidance for 2019 following a decision by GlaxoSmithKline Plc to start Phase 3 trials of one of its antibodies. This triggers a €22 million milestone payment to MorphoSys. The German company now expects revenue this year will be between €65-72 million, up from €43-50 million previously, and its loss before interest and tax to narrow to €105-115 million from €127-137 million previously.

The Belgian drug discovery company Confo Therapeutics NV has linked up with a technology provider in Germany to identify a small molecule compound that could modulate an undisclosed G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) for the purpose of treating disease. Companies have been working for years to effectively target GPCRs, a family of membrane proteins that are involved in a wide range of biological processes and disorders.  

The charity Cancer Research UK is to invest $25 million in a biotechnology fund managed by SV Health Investors as part of a partnership aimed at accelerating the development of new oncology drugs.

Under the arrangement, Cancer Research UK will provide at least $25 million to SV Health Investors’ seventh venture capital fund which is expected to raise $250 million. About 60% of the fund’s new capital will be invested in oncology or oncology-related projects.

MODAG GmbH, a new German company focused on neurological diseases, has raised €12 million in a Series A financing round to bring its lead product for multiple system atrophy (MSA) into clinical development. MSA is a rare neurodegenerative disorder characterised by the progressive loss of function and death of different types of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. According to the US National Institutes of Health, there are currently no drugs that are capable of slowing the progression of the disease.