Finance, Grants, Deals

Boston Scientific Corp has reached agreement with the board of BTG Plc on the terms of a takeover offer which values the UK specialty pharma company at £3.3 billion. The deal will be executed through Bravo Bidco Ltd, an entity indirectly owned by the US company.

Boston Scientific is offering 840 pence in cash per share of BTG. This represents a premium of 36.6% to the BTG closing share price of 615 pence on 19 November and a 51% premium to the company’s 90-day volume-weighted average share price for the period ended 19 November.

Immunocore Ltd is expanding a 2013 collaboration with Genentech (Roche) to co-develop a bi-specific biologic for cancer. The compound is based on soluble T cell receptors that have been designed to recognize intracellular cancer antigens, and then kill cancer cells through an anti-CD3 effector function.

In this case, the targets are tumours expressing the melanoma-associated antigen A4. Called IMC-C103C, the molecule is poised to enter clinical development in early 2019.

The UK artificial intelligence company Exscientia Ltd has expanded its drug discovery resource with the acquisition of Kinetic Discovery Ltd, a protein engineering specialist. The transaction follows Exscientia’s expansion in Oxford where it is bringing computer scientists, drug designers and biologists under one roof to work on algorithm development for drug discovery. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB (Sobi) has agreed to pay up to $1.5 billion upfront to AstraZeneca Plc for US rights to Synagis (palivizumab), an off-patent medicine for the prevention of serious lower respiratory tract infection caused by the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants and young children.

The upfront payment consists of cash and newly issued Sobi shares which will give AstraZeneca an equity interest in the Swedish company of about 8%.

Curetis NV’s proposed private placement, intended to raise up to €18.4 million, has attracted less than half this amount, or €8.9 million, from investors. As a result, the molecular diagnostics company said it plans to reassess its strategic priorities.

This will entail re-evaluating funding for the commercialisation of Unyvero, a cartridge-based diagnostic for detecting pathogens and antimicrobial resistance markers in infectious disease indications; its European commercialisation activities, working capital requirements and research and development programmes.

The European institutions are a fertile source of funding for small and medium-sized life science enterprises, (SMEs), but gaining access to this capital requires a different set of skills than pitching for venture capital. This was one of the conclusions of a discussion at the BioEurope conference in Copenhagen on 6 November which featured presentations by Laszlo Helmle of the European Commission; Pierre Meulien of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) and Auvo Kaikkonen of the European Investment Bank.

In line with previously announced plans to diversify its portfolio, Novo Nordisk A/S has entered into a collaboration with a university spin-out, Embark Biotech ApS, to discover new treatments for obesity and associated metabolic pathologies.

A European research consortium in which Plasticell Ltd is a partner organisation has won a €3.7 million award from the EU to create cellular models of a group of neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s disease, which result from the acute or progressive loss of cells in the brain. The goal is to produce patient-specific human neural models in test tubes, microchips or model organisms that can be used to discover new therapies.

Orchard Therapeutics Ltd took the next step in its quest to become a global gene therapy company on 31 October with an initial public offering on Nasdaq which is expected to raise $200 million. Founded in 2015, the company has already generated nearly $300 million in venture capital.

The IPO consists of 14,285,715 American Depositary Shares representing 14,285,715 ordinary shares at a price of $14 per ADS before underwriting discounts and commissions. The offering is expected to close on 2 November.

Austria-based Themis Bioscience GmbH may raise up to €55.3 million in an initial public offering on Euronext Amsterdam and share placements in the US and elsewhere to finance the clinical development of its lead vaccine for Chikungunya, a mosquito-borne viral infection.