Netherlands-based ISA Pharmaceuticals BV has secured its first industrial collaboration for a product developed from its synthetic long-peptide portfolio, a deal which both validates the technology and illustrates the trend in immuno-oncology towards the development of combination therapies.
Roche has reached an agreement to acquire California, US- based Ignyta Inc for $1.7 billion, a company with small molecule therapies targeting kinases which have been activated by gene fusions – a class of oncogenes associated with both blood cancers and solid tumours.
Orchard Therapeutics Ltd has completed an oversubscribed $110 million Series B financing round to support its pipeline of gene therapies which is led by a clinical-stage product for the inherited disorder, adenosine deaminase severe combined immunodeficiency (ADA-SCID).
Orchard Therapeutics Ltd has obtained rights to technology developed by the French research institution Généthon to continue development of a new gene therapy for the immune deficiency, X-linked chronic granulomatous disease.
Bluebird bio Inc has teamed up with the Edinburgh, UK-based TC BioPharm Ltd to create new immunotherapies for cancer based on gamma delta T cells, a small subset of T cells involved in the initiation and propagation of immune responses.
A new oncolytic virus therapy that is intended to treat solid tumours is poised to enter clinical development triggering a $15 million milestone payment from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co to the developer PsiOxus Therapeutics Ltd of Oxford, UK.
NorthSea Therapeutics BV, a Dutch company established in November 2017 to exploit a licence for a NASH treatment called icosabutate, has raised €25 million in a Series A equity financing that will allow the company to run a critical Phase 2b, proof-of-concept study of the drug by the end of 2018.
Netherlands-based LSP (Life Sciences Partners) has raised €280 million in the first and final closing of a new medical technology fund that will invest in companies developing medical devices, diagnostics and applications for digital health.
Hookipa Biotech AG has raised €50 million in an oversubscribed Series C financing to support the clinical development of vaccines for infectious diseases and cancer. The round was led by an undisclosed US public investment fund.
Belgium-based Aelin Therapeutics has received €27 million in Series A financing from a syndicate of investors to develop a new class of antibiotics against human targets that thus far have been undruggable. The company is a spin-out of the VIB research institute.