News

A topical treatment for diabetic macular oedema is poised to enter Phase 3 development following the closing of a $57 million Series C financing round for the developer, Oculis SA of Switzerland. The treatment, OCS-01, is an eye drop formulation of dexamethasone, a corticosteroid, which if approved, would be the first topical treatment for a retinal oedema.

Mogrify Ltd has raised an additional $17 million in venture capital bringing the total generated for its Series A financing round up to $33 million. The proceeds will be used to advance programmes in immuno-oncology and ophthalmology as well as in vivo reprogramming therapies for retinal degeneration. Mogrify has developed a direct cellular conversion technology that enables researchers to transform any mature human cell type into any other without going through a pluripotent stem cell state. This is a new approach to drug discovery and development. 

Technology that integrates clinical trial data from patients with dementia and machine learning has received financial support from public and private funders in the UK. The company responsible for the technology is Cumulus Neuroscience Ltd (formerly BrainWaveBank) of Belfast, Northern Ireland. On 4 May, it announced receipt of £6 million from the Dementia Discovery Fund, the Future Fund and the charity, LifeArc.

Preclinical work being undertaken by STORM Therapeutics Ltd has shown that targeting RNA modifying enzymes with small molecule drugs is a credible new strategy for treating acute myeloid leukaemia, as well as solid tumours. A second paper outlining this strategy was published on 26 April 2021 in the journal Nature.

An experimental long-acting antibody has reduced infections caused by the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in a Phase 3 trial of healthy infants. Nirsevimab met its primary endpoint of significantly reducing the incidence of lower respiratory tract infections, the developers AstraZeneca Plc and Sanofi SA announced on 26 April.

Bimekizumab, a monoclonal antibody directed against interleukin-17A and interleukin-17F, has outperformed two marketed products in separate Phase 3 trials of patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis, a chronic inflammatory skin disease for which there is no cure.

The trial results were published in separate articles in The New England Journal of Medicine on 23 April 2021.

A new US company with technology for developing tissue-targeted gene therapies for multiple diseases, has launched with $140 million in venture capital financing and collaboration income from AbbVie Inc. Capsida Biotherapeutics Inc is based on technology developed by Viviana Gradinaru and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology in the US.

Adcendo ApS, a Danish company founded in 2017 to develop antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) technology, has raised €51 million in a Series A financing – the largest Series A round for a Danish biotech company. Adcendo is developing ADCs directed against a cell surface receptor which is understood to be overexpressed on several non-epithelial cancers including sarcomas, glioblastomas and subsets of acute myeloid leukaemia. Expression is restricted in healthy individuals.

AstraZeneca Plc increased its revenue by 15% in the first quarter, enabling it to spend more on research and development as well as the manufacture of a Covid-19 vaccine developed with the University of Oxford. The company also advanced its proposed $39 billion acquisition of Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc, a US specialty pharmaceutical company. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter.

Demand for the immunology drug Dupixent was the main driver behind the financial performance of Sanofi SA in the first quarter, which otherwise experienced sales declines for legacy medicines and drugs for neurological diseases. Group sales were €8.59 billion for the quarter, representing a decline of 4.3% from a year earlier. However, on a constant exchange rate basis, sales rose by 2.4%.