The London-based investment group, Arix Bioscience Plc, has co-led a $63 million investment round in Imara Inc, a US company developing a small molecule drug to treat sickle cell disease, a rare genetic blood disorder that can lead to organ injury. Joining Arix as co-leader of the Series B round was Orbimed Advisors.
A young Danish company, SNIPR BIOME, that is using CRISPR/Cas technology to fight bacteria has raised $50 million in a Series A financing round co-led by Life Sciences Partners (LSP) and existing investor Lundbeckfonden Emerge. The North-East Family Office of Copenhagen, Denmark and Wellington Partners of Munich, Germany also participated in the round.
MolMed SpA and Genenta Science SRL, both of Italy, have renewed and extended an oncology collaboration with a view to starting trials of a candidate drug that could treat both haematologic malignancies and solid tumours. Genenta has developed an ex-vivo immune-gene transfer technology to enable the targeting of immunomodulatory molecules to tumour-infiltrating monocytes and macrophages. The goal is to deliver an immunomodulatory molecule into the tumour microenvironment triggering an immune response against multiple tumour antigens.
Biogen Inc is to acquire Nightstar Therapeutics Plc, a gene therapy company spun out from the University of Oxford and financed by Syncona, which has a product in Phase 3 for the treatment of choroideremia, a rare retinal disorder. The US biotech company will pay $25.50 in cash for each share of Nightstar, valuing the company at approximately $800 million.
Calypso Biotech BV has completed a €20 million Series A round to advance a preclinical antibody for autoimmune indications into human studies. The financing round was announced on 20 February by INKEF Capital, which co-led the round together with Gilde Healthcare.
Syncona Ltd, an active investor in cell and gene therapy, has joined the Novartis Venture Fund to provide CHF 35 million (€31 million) in Series A funding to Anaveon AG, a Swiss start-up which is developing biologics for cancer.
Founded in December 2017, Anaveon has a preclinical product targeting the interleukin 2 (IL-2) receptor. The biologic is an agonist which is expected to enhance a patient’s immune system to respond to tumours and work better than other IL-2 products.
A Dutch venture capital fund with investments in healthcare and technology has led a €10 million Series A financing round for Aidence BV, a company that uses artificial intelligence to improve medical imaging. INKEF Capital headed the round with co-investor Rabo Ventures, alongside existing investors Northzone, HenQ and Health Innovations.
The Roche group has moved into gene therapy and simultaneously strengthened its franchise in haemophilia with the acquisition of Spark Therapeutics Inc, one of a small number of gene therapy companies in the world with a product on the market. The all-cash transaction is valued at approximately $4.3 billion, representing a substantial premium to Spark’s current stock price. Nonetheless, it is below the $8.7 billion that Novartis paid for AveXis Inc and the $9 billion Celgene Corp paid for Juno Therapeutics in 2018 – both gene therapy companies.
Ipsen SA is to acquire the Canadian pharma company Clementia Pharmaceuticals Inc giving it a late-stage drug candidate for two rare bone disorders. The acquisition comes at a time when the French company is enjoying strong demand for its specialist portfolio which includes oncology drugs as well as two products for growth hormone deficiencies.
A venture capital syndicate led by Netherlands-based Life Sciences Partners (LSP) is providing $180 million to Arvelle Therapeutics GmbH, a recently created Swiss company, which has exclusive rights to develop and commercialise a new epilepsy drug in Europe.
The Series A funding is reportedly one of the largest rounds of its kind for a European-focused biopharmaceutical company. Besides LSP, the syndicate includes Andera Partners, NovaQuest Capital Management, BRV Capital Management and H.I.G. BioHealth Partners.