Amgen Inc has made a £50 million equity investment in Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd of the UK as part of its strategy of using genetic data to develop new medicines. Amgen’s subsidiary deCODE Genetics of Iceland currently uses Oxford Nanopore’s sequencing technologies to conduct genome research including the identification and validation of new drug targets.
Novartis has announced plans to expand its presence in the field of radiopharmaceuticals with the acquisition of Endocyte Inc, a US company with drug conjugation technology for developing targeted therapies with companion imaging agents. The deal is valued at $2.1 billion.
A new gene therapy company that uses chemogenetics-based technology has been launched in the US with plans to develop a product aimed at managing chronic neuropathic pain. CODA Biotherapeutics Inc is based in South San Francisco, California and made its debut on 12 September with a $19 million in Series A financing.
Austria-based Themis Bioscience GmbH has entered into a licencing agreement with Max-Planck-Innovation GmbH, the technology transfer arm of the Max Planck Society of Germany, for exclusive rights to an oncolytic measles virus platform that could be used to develop new oncology drugs.
The technology was jointly developed by Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen and the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The field of RNA therapeutics received a boost on 10 October when a group of investors provided Series A funding to Gotham Therapeutics Inc, a company founded by Versant Ventures to develop drugs that target RNA-modifying proteins. The new company will be exploiting discoveries in the field of epitranscriptomics, a discipline which describes the biochemical modifications of RNA within a cell. These modifications help determine the degree to which genes are translated into proteins.
GW Pharmaceuticals Plc has raised $300 million in a secondary offering on the US Nasdaq, providing it with capital to commercialise its recently approved cannabinoid medicine Epidiolex for the treatment of seizures associated with the childhood epilepsies, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome.
Epidiolex was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration on 25 June. The medicine is currently under review at the European Medicines Agency with a decision expected in the first quarter of 2019.
Forbion Capital Partners of the Netherlands has closed its previously-announced Forbion IV biopharma fund at €360 million, significantly above the original target of €250 million. Forbion IV, like its predecessor fund Forbion III, will primarily invest in life science opportunities in the EU, including the UK, with the remainder targeting North America.
The checkpoint protein on immune cells may have another role to play in treating disease besides fighting cancer. This is the proposition being put forward by Altheia Science Srl, a new Italian biotech which is building a pipeline of agents to modulate programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) and its ligand (PD-L1) for the treatment of Type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis.
Abzena Plc is to apply its antibody technology to chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell development under a new agreement with Tmunity Therapeutics Inc, a company co-founded by Carl June, head of the scientific team that discovered Kymriah.
Two German networking organisations have announced plans for helping nascent biotechnology and medical device companies start operations in Europe by obtaining crowdfunding, which involves raising small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet.
Would-be biotechs will be able to raise €1 million to €10 million with a prospectus and for amounts smaller than €1 million a prospectus will not be needed.