Promethera Biosciences SA has completed a Series D financing round to support the development of its cell therapies for liver disease, raising €39.7 million from global investors. A total of €10 million of the funding was committed by the Japanese conglomerate Itochu Corp in January.
A new Switzerland-based company, Alentis Therapeutics Ltd, has received CHF 12.5 million (€11.1 million) in Series A funding to develop an antibody drug for the potential treatment of liver fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. The technology is based on research conducted by scientists at the University of Strasbourg and Inserm in France, as well as the Mount Sinai Hospital in the US.
PolyProx Therapeutics Ltd, a spin-out of the University of Cambridge, has secured £3.4 million in seed capital to finance the development of a new class of engineered proteins for treating cancer. The seed round was co-led by Cambridge Innovation Capital Plc, RT Capital Management and Cambridge Enterprise, the commercialisation arm of Cambridge University.
UK-based Congenica Ltd has raised an additional £13.25 million in a Series B round extension, bringing total receipts from the round up to £23.3 million. Led by Parkwalk Advisors with participation from Cambridge Innovation Capital Plc, the funding will enable the genome services group to further develop its technology and expand in the US and China.
AstraZeneca Plc has entered into a research collaboration and exclusive licensing deal with Transgene SA of France to co-develop five oncolytic virus drug candidates for the treatment of cancer. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Oncolytic virus therapies are genetically modified viruses that are injected into tumour cells to cause cell death and as a second step, stimulate the immune system. To date, one oncolytic virus product, Amgen Inc’s Imlygic for the treatment of melanoma, has been approved for marketing, but many more are in development.
Cambridge Innovation Capital Plc is leading an investment group that includes Genentech to provide seed capital to promising life science and healthcare companies in the UK and elsewhere. The seed capital will be issued by a new business accelerator called Start Codon located in Cambridge, UK.
Hookipa Pharma Inc has priced its initial public share offering on the US Nasdaq market at $14 per share to raise a gross $84 million, excluding any exercise of the underwriters’options. The proceeds will finance the company’s portfolio of immunotherapies targeting infectious diseases and cancers.
Catalent Inc, a service provider for the biotech industry, is to pay $1.2 billion to acquire Paragon Bioservices Inc a company with expertise in adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors for gene therapy. The New Jersey, US-based company said it expects the market for gene therapies to grow by 25% in the coming years.
The Dutch cell therapy company Kiadis Pharma NV has taken steps to strengthen its presence in the haematopoietic stem cell transplant sector with the agreed takeover of CytoSen Therapeutics Inc. The all-share transaction includes an upfront payment in stock as well as milestone payments contingent on the achievement of six clinical development and regulatory goals. CytoSen’s lead asset is a natural killer (NK) cell product designed to enable patients to receive a stem cell transplant from haploidentical donors. It is due to enter clinical development in 2020.
On the heels of a regulatory approval, Nanobiotix SA has raised €29.5 million in a private share placement to continue the clinical development of its radioenhancer products for the treatment of cancer. The placement was oversubscribed during an accelerated bookbuilding process. Both existing and new investors from the US and Europe supported the offering.