Finance, Grants, Deals

AstraZeneca Plc announced on 7 May that it will divest its legacy neuroscience product Seroquel by way of a sale to Luye Pharma Group Ltd, a Chinese investment holding company. The sale is part of AstraZeneca’s strategy of lightening up its portfolio to focus on three core therapy areas.

The core areas are oncology; treatments for cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases; and treatments for respiratory diseases. Seroquel was first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2007; it started losing its patent protection in 2012.

Germany’s Medigene AG has raised €32.3 million in an oversubscribed private placement enabling it to expanded its ongoing clinical programme of prospective products for cancer using T cell receptor modified T cells.

The company issued 2.2 million new shares from its authorised capital on 24 May, representing approximately 10% of its outstanding share capital. The financing will increase the total number of registered shares of the company to 24,544,595.

A joint venture between Vifor Pharma Group and Fresenius Medical Care has entered into a licencing agreement with Cara Therapeutics Inc of the US to develop and commercialise a drug for treating severe itching associated with chronic kidney disease.

The drug, CR845 (difelikefalin), is a peripherally acting kappa opioid receptor agonist in development for the treatment of pruritus and pain.

Responding to renewed interest in cancer vaccines, Merck & Co Inc and Moderna Therapeutics Inc have expanded a 2016 collaboration to develop and commercialise novel personalised messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines.

A 2016 drug discovery alliance between Germany’s Medigene AG and bluebird bio Inc of the US has been expanded to raise the number of candidate compounds to be developed to six from four. The products are T cell receptor-modified T cell immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer.

AstraZeneca Plc is to use organ-on-chip technology to test drug compounds for safety and efficacy under a new collaboration with the Boston, Massachusetts, US company Emulate Inc. Emulate will co-locate scientists within AstraZeneca’s laboratories in the UK where the chips will be tested across the AZ pipeline.

Abcam Plc has decided not to pursue a proposed offer for Horizon Discovery Group Plc having been rebuffed by the gene-editing company, which is based in Cambridge, UK. Abcam is a pharmaceutical services company, also based in Cambridge.

InflaRx NV of Germany has raised a net $57.1 million from a primary and secondary offering of its shares on Nasdaq to support its portfolio of drugs for inflammatory diseases that target the complement system, a component of the innate immune system.

Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd has won the agreement of Shire Plc to a takeover that values the Ireland-based company at $62 billion and will potentially strengthen Takeda’s position in the US. Although headquartered in Dublin, Shire generates most of its business from the US.

The UK gene therapy company Autolus Ltd has filed papers with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed initial public offering of its shares on Nasdaq. The offering will take the form of American Depositary Shares each representing one ordinary share in the company.