Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd, which only recently launched an agreed bid for the Belgian cell therapy company TiGenix NV, has confirmed that it is “considering making an approach” to Shire Plc – a much larger company. Shire responded that “it has not received an approach from Takeda.”
GlaxoSmithKline Plc is to take full control of a joint consumer products venture that it set up with Novartis in 2014 as part of an asset swap agreement that also saw the UK company buy Novartis’ vaccines business and sell many of its oncology assets.
SafeHeal SAS, a French company with a medical device to help patients recover from bowel surgery, has received €6 million in Series A financing from investors led by Sofinnova Partners. The funds will support a study that is being run to obtain a CE mark in Europe, and commercial development.
A 2005 spinout of Oxford University, Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd, has raised £100 million from international investors for the commercial development of a suite of devices that sequence DNA and RNA in real time for use in medicine and environmental research.
MorphoSys AG has announced plans for a US share offering following a year in which its lead lymphoma antibody MOR208 received a ‘breakthrough therapy’ designation from the Food and Drug Administration and a second product based on its technology was launched by Janssen Biotech.
Netherlands-based Escalier Biosciences BV has raised $19 million in a Series B financing round to bring a topical compound into the clinic for the treatment of psoriasis. The first clinical study is expected to start in mid-2018.
H. Lundbeck A/S is to pay €100 million upfront to buy a six-year-old biotech that is developing a small molecule drug for treating the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD). This will broaden its neurological franchise which includes PD.
UK-based Autolus Ltd has made a submission to the US Securities and Exchange Commission relating to a potential initial public offering of its shares. As of 8 March, the timing and terms of the potential offering had not been determined.
Evotec AG is to gain rights to a group of infectious disease assets from Sanofi SA in a transaction that will see the German company become a research hub for the development of medicines for diseases caused by bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites.
Spain-based Minoryx Therapeutics s.l. has spun out a platform technology into a new company, enabling it to focus on its lead programme MIN-102 for the treatment of X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy, a genetic disorder affecting the nervous system.