The UK cancer vaccine company Scancell Holdings Plc has raised £8.7 million from existing and new shareholders in order to advance its portfolio of early clinical stage vaccines for melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer and other solid tumours.
e-Therapeutics Plc aims to identify intervention strategies for the potential treatment of Parkinson’s disease under a new collaboration with the drug discovery company C4X Discovery Holdings Plc.
Crescendo Biologics Ltd has secured $70 million in a Series B financing round to advance its lead product into the clinic for a cancer indication and further develop its pipeline of biologics that are based on a variable domain of the human antibody.
The Wellcome Trust has awarded £4.3 million to PredictImmune of Cambridge UK to finance a clinical trial of the company’s prognostic biomarker test for Crohn’s disease. The assay was developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge.
Shire Plc has secured additional time from the UK competition authority to review a proposed bid from Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd that values the Dublin-based company at £46 billion. The parties have until 8 May to reach a decision.
Shire Plc announced on 16 April that it has reached a deal to sell its oncology business to Servier SAS of France for $2.4 billion. The transaction was described by the company as a move to sharpen its focus on its portfolio for drugs treating rare diseases.
The Belgium-based cell therapy company Promethera Biosciences SA has branched out into biologics with the acquisition of Baliopharm AG, a Swiss developer of therapies for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases and cancer. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
Enterprise Therapeutics Ltd, which is developing compounds for respiratory diseases by targeting unwanted mucus in the lungs, has raised £29 million in an oversubscribed Series B financing round co-led by Versant Ventures and the Novartis Venture Fund.
Orchard Therapeutics Ltd has come closer to its goal of becoming a global supplier of gene therapies following an agreement with GlaxoSmithKline Plc to take over that company’s portfolio of gene therapies for rare diseases.
Wilson Therapeutics AB is to be bought by Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc for $855 million in a deal that underscores the potential of the Swedish company’s lead product for Wilson disease, a rare genetic disorder that prevents the body from regulating copper. The disease can lead to liver and brain damage.