News

The private equity group Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe (WCAS) is to acquire Abzena Plc, a service company based in Cambridge UK, that has built up an international business in antibody discovery and chemistry services with subsidiaries in two locations in the US.

The acquisition values Abzena at 16 pence per share or approximately £34.4 million, which is more than double the closing price of the company’s shares on the AIM market in London on 15 August. The price is about 1.5 times the company’s revenue of £22 million in the fiscal year ended 31 March 2018.

Germany-based BioNTech AG is to expand its portfolio of individualised therapies beyond cancer to include infectious disease. Under a new collaboration with Pfizer Inc, the two companies will develop messenger RNA-based vaccines for the prevention of influenza.

The agreement involves an initial payment of $120 million to BioNTech plus potential development, regulatory and commercial milestones of up to up to $305 million.

Crescendo Biologics Ltd has reached a new milestone in a strategic collaboration with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd which is directed at developing novel drugs for cancer. The drugs are biologics which are based on the human variable domain of an antibody. The size of the milestone payment wasn’t disclosed but it is the second to be achieved this year under a 2016 collaboration between the two companies, Crescendo announced on 15 August.

A new two-drug monthly regimen for the treatment of HIV-1 infected adults has generated positive data in a pivotal Phase 3 study, ViiV Healthcare Ltd announced on 15 August.

The study, ATLAS, met its primary endpoint showing similar efficacy for the once-a-month injectable two-drug treatment compared with a standard of care, daily, oral three-drug regimen.

A Phase 2a study that was evaluating a potential treatment for paediatric patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease was stopped early in August after the first three patients showed an increase in liver fat and elevations in serum alanine transaminase (ALT) levels, raising concerns about liver toxicity.

Orchard Therapeutics Ltd has raised $150 million in a Series C financing round to advance its portfolio of ex vivo gene therapies, the most advanced of which is in registration trials for the treatment of an ultra-rare disease that damages the immune system.

The oversubscribed financing round was led by Deerfield Management Company LP with significant new investments from RA Capital Management and nine other funds. Existing investors also participated in the round including Temasek, Baillie Gifford and Cowen Healthcare Investments.

A study published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research concludes that elevated levels of kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1), a transmembrane protein in blood plasma, can predict renal cell carcinoma (RCC) incidence up to five years before a diagnosis.

An early warning of kidney cancer could make the difference between life and death. When diagnosed early, eight out of 10 people will survive for five years or more. But if the disease is diagnosed late, only one out of 10 survive, according to the charity Cancer Research UK.

Oncology drugs that promise to meet a major public health need may in future be eligible for a clinical development pathway that is both simpler and less costly than traditional methods, the US Food and Drug Administration announced on 10 August.

A study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine by researchers at the Helmholtz Zentrum München and the University of Denver in the US suggests that idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) may be related to an increase in extracellular vesicles that relay WNT5A signals to the lungs for an increase in connective tissue.

Extracellular vesicles are tiny pouches released by cells that can contain a large number of messenger substances, such as proteins and nucleic acids.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved an RNA therapeutic developed by Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc to treat patients with a rare genetic disease characterised by the build-up of abnormal amyloid protein in peripheral nerves and other organs.