Novartis announced significant changes to its operating structure, and new leadership for its Alcon eye division on 27 January as its financial results for 2015 showed declines in both operating and net income.
Two scientists from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Australia have reported that targeting a signalling protein called HheX stopped the progression of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) in mice.
Inivata Ltd, which is developing a blood test for detecting cancer from circulating tumour DNA, has raised £31.5 million in a Series A funding round supported by the investment group Imperial Innovations Group Plc.
A new £40 million fund that will help bring promising UK academic research into commercial development has been set up by AstraZeneca Plc, GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Johnson & Johnson Inc and universities in London and Cambridge.
Vasopharm GmbH, a privately held German company focused on cerebrovascular diseases, has raised €20 million from venture capital companies to finance Phase 3 development of its lead product for traumatic brain injury VAS203.
Abingworth LLP, the London-based investment group, has created a new fund to invest in late-stage life science assets that are being developed by two of its portfolio companies under contract with the pharmaceutical industry.
Netherlands-based Mucosis BV has secured a £2.77 million award from the Wellcome Trust to take an experimental vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) into the clinic. RSV is a virus that causes lung and airway infections in infants and young children.
The neuroscience sector took a further step towards consolidation on 19 January with an agreed bid by Acorda Therapeutics Inc for Finland’s Biotie Therapies Oyj which has a late-stage compound for Parkinson’s disease in the clinic and royalty revenue from a product for alcohol dependence. The deal is valued at about $363 million.
University College London in the UK has obtained financing for a £50 million in-house venture fund that will invest in spinouts and early stage projects originated by its academic staff in the life sciences, engineering and information technology.
Argenx NV, which engineers antibodies originating in llamas, has announced plans to sell about €16 million worth of its shares to funds managed by Federated Investors Inc of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, one of the US’s largest funds with more than $350 billion under management.