Venture capital-backed 4-Antibody AG of Switzerland is to be acquired by Agenus Inc of the US in a deal intended to exploit the Swiss company’s technology for producing antibodies that target checkpoint molecules, key regulators of the immune system.
Alkermes Plc is raising $250 million from a placement of its shares with the Invesco Perpetual Income Fund and the Invesco Perpetual High Income Fund. The placement comes three months after the company’s product for depression received ‘fast-track’ designation from the FDA.
Sanofi SA will significantly increase its exposure to the RNAi class of medicines under a plan to take a 12% stake in Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The equity deal, valued at $700 million, is linked to rights to Alnylam’s portfolio of rare-disease medicines.
The Netherlands-based holding company, Qiagen NV, has broadened its strategic partnership with Exosome Diagnostics Inc of the US in order to develop blood-based molecular diagnostics for certain cancer indications.
The US Food and Drug Administration has given an accelerated approval for a new treatment for metastatic melanoma that combines two licenced GlaxoSmithKline Plc medicines which block signalling in different sites of the same molecular pathway.
Avillion LLP, a company set up by two venture capital groups to undertake late-stage clinical development on behalf of third parties, has signed a deal with Pfizer Inc to conduct a Phase 3 trial of the US company’s leukaemia drug bosutinib.
Immunocore Ltd of Oxford, UK has secured its third partnership with a major pharmaceutical company relating to the exploitation of its recombinant T-cell receptor technology platform – this time with MedImmune, the biologics unit of AstraZeneca Plc.
Santaris Pharma A/S of Denmark has entered into a strategic alliance with Roche to discover and develop RNA-targeted medicines using locked nucleic acid technology which has been developed by Santaris.
GW Pharmaceuticals Plc has raised $87.9 million in a follow-on offering of an earlier initial public offering on Nasdaq. The funds will be used to support the clinical development of a childhood epilepsy product.
A fund operated by Gilde Healthcare Partners BV has acquired a majority interest in Viroclinics Biosciences BV, a 2001 spin-out from the virology department at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.