News

The European Medicines Agency has recommended two new cancer drugs for marketing authorisation in the European Union, one of which is for the treatment of breast cancer and the other for soft tissue sarcoma.

A UK start-up company called GammaDelta Therapeutics Ltd has joined a small number of European companies that are exploring the potential of gamma delta T cells as the basis for new immunotherapies for cancer.

In a decision on 8 September, the General Court of the European Union has upheld €150 million of fines imposed by the European Commission on H. Lundbeck A/S and four generic companies for what it says were infringements of competition law.

Bavarian Nordic A/S and Janssen Pharmaceutical are progressing their vaccine technology against the Ebola virus with plans to start a human study in a second-generation multivalent vaccine for Ebola and two other related viruses.

Amgen Inc has signed a research agreement with two Milan-based institutions to develop an ex-vivo gene therapy for cancer. The research will be based on some of the same principles that guided the development of Strimvelis, an ex vivo stem cell gene therapy that was approved by the European Commission in May of this year.

A privately held Irish medical technology company has raised €16.2 million in capital to support the commercialisation in Europe of an implant and delivery system that closes blood vessels after certain medical procedures. The company, Vivasure Medical Ltd, is based in Galway.

Fluidic Analytics Ltd, a 2013 spin-out from the University of Cambridge’s chemistry department, has raised £5.3 million in a Series B investment round to progress its line of laboratory research tools for characterising proteins that can reveal an individual’s disease state or state of health.

Bayer AG has agreed to pay $128 per share in an all-cash bid for Monsanto Co to create one of the largest suppliers of seeds and agricultural chemicals. Including debt, the transaction is valued at $66 billion and is one of the largest German takeovers of a US company.

Promimic AB, a Swedish biomaterials company, has secured SEK 23.8 million (€2.49 million) in new equity to prepare for the commercial launch of its orthopaedic and dental implant products in the US.

Verily Life Sciences LLC, a subsidiary of the IT conglomerate Alphabet Inc, and Sanofi SA, have created a jointly owned company called Onduo which will provide services to patients with Type 2 diabetes by tapping into the potential of big data to help patients manage their disease. Onduo will be based in Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the mecca of the global biotech industry.