News

The European Investment Fund (EIF), together with institutions in Germany and Austria, has launched a new fund to support early-stage drug discovery projects sourced predominantly from academic institutions in both countries.

The fund, KHAN Technology Transfer Fund I GmbH (KHAN-I), is based in Dortmund, Germany and has capital of €60 million. Half of the initial capital, or €30 million, is being provided by the EIF, which is part of the European Investment Bank Group. The fund will invest in either new project ideas covered by collaboration agreements or in start-up companies.

A French immunology company founded in 2013 has raised €39 million in a Series B financing round to advance the development of a drug candidate for patients with septic shock. Inotrem SA is being supported by Morningside Ventures, which led the round, along with the evergreen investor Invus. Existing investors Andera Partners, Sofinnova Partners and BiomedInvest, also participated in the round.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is to make a $55 million equity investment in BioNTech SE as part of a collaboration aimed at developing potential HIV and tuberculosis vaccine and immunotherapy candidate drugs. Total funding under the collaboration could reach $100 million through potential future grant funding from the Gates Foundation. The additional funds would be used to underwrite the evaluation of the candidate products in the clinic and to start new infectious disease projects.

The Italian gene therapy company Genenta Science SRL has raised €13.2 million in a new financing round to progress novel treatments for multiple myeloma and glioblastoma that deliver immunomodulatory molecules into the tumour environment. The company has received regulatory approval to start Phase 1/2 clinical trials in both cancer indications.

The new financing brings total capital raised by the company up to €30.2 million since its founding in 2014 as a spin-out from the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan.

Margrethe Vestager has been nominated for a second term as EU competition commissioner in a re-make of the union’s executive body that will see women take 13 out of the 27 top jobs and a 28-year old Lithuanian assume responsibility for the environment and oceans.

The Dutch vaccine developer DCprime BV has entered a research collaboration with the University Medical Center of Groningen to design a therapeutic vaccine for ovarian cancer using an approach that targets residual disease after a standard-of-care treatment.

The goal of the partnership is to design a novel relapse vaccine for ovarian cancer and to prepare for a clinical trial in ovarian cancer patients. DCprime will work with the university’s department of obstetrics and gynecology which is led by Hans Nijman.

UK based Theragnostics Ltd has obtained rights to an inhibitor of the poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) enzyme in order to develop a new diagnostic for cancer. The licensing agreement is with AstraZeneca Plc and also includes an option to develop a radionuclide-labelled PARP inhibitor. AstraZeneca markets the PARP inhibitor Lynparza.

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

The gene therapy company uniQure NV has set the price of an underwritten public offering of 4.9 million shares on Nasdaq at $46 per share giving gross proceeds of $225 million. Goldman Sachs & Co LLC and SVB Leerink are joint book-runners for the offering, which attracted more than the targeted amount of $200 million.

Switzerland-based ADC Therapeutics SA has made a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch an initial public offering of its shares on the New York Stock Exchange. This comes ahead of an expected regulatory filing for its lead cancer therapy ADCT-402 in the second half of 2020.

The size of the offering and price range of the shares have not yet been determined, the company said on 6 September. Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Cowen will act as joint book-runners for the offering.

Semma Therapeutics Inc, a company co-founded by stem cell scientist Douglas Melton, is being sold to Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc to advance a potentially curative treatment for Type 1 diabetes. Vertex will acquire all of the outstanding shares of Semma for $950 million in cash.