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.
The second arm of a Phase 3 study of the checkpoint inhibitor Tecentriq (atezolizumab) in patients with advanced lung cancer has shown a progression free survival (PFS) benefit when combined with chemotherapy, according to the developer Roche.
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.
An experimental drug for Alzheimer’s disease that has failed in successive trials to show efficacy, demonstrated for the first time that it can reduce amyloid beta plaques in the brain at a higher dose. Gantenerumab achieved an effect at dosing of up to 1200 mg.
MorphoSys AG will maintain a high level of research and development spending this year as it advances its lymphoma antibody MOR208 in the clinic with a goal of getting an expedited review of the product from the US Food and Drug Administration.
If everything goes according to plan, member states of the European Union will in future use a common methodology to decide whether a new medicine or medical device is clinically effective, relative to certain benchmarks, and therefore be considered for reimbursement. This is the scenario envisioned by the European Commission under a proposed Regulation on Health Technology Assessment, which was unveiled earlier this year.