News

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.

Lombard Medical Technologies Plc is planning to delist its shares in London and make an initial public offering on the Nasdaq market in New York. The company said this will give it access to a larger pool of investors familiar with its market.

Nextech Invest Ltd of Switzerland has led a $25 million Series B financing round for a young US biotech company that is developing kinase inhibitors for genomically-defined cancer subsets. Blueprint Medicines Corp is located in Cambridge, Mass.

A Phase 3 study of an experimental treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and small lymphocytic lymphoma has been stopped early on efficacy grounds. The treatment, Imbruvica (ibrutinib) has been developed by Janssen Research & Development LLC.

The US Food and Drug Administration has issued a complete response letter (CRL) to Sanofi SA saying it can’t approve the company’s supplemental Biologics License Application for Lemtrada (alemtuzumab) for relapsing multiple sclerosis.

A group of international researchers has described how abnormalities in the human genome affect cognition, explaining why some people develop neurological diseases such as schizophrenia and autism, and others do not. The findings were reported online in the journal Nature on 18 December.

Europe’s political leaders have reached an agreement on a new set of rules for conducting clinical trials in the EU. A key feature of the new legislation will be the introduction of a single authorisation procedure for all trials instead of multiple procedures at present.

The European Medicines Agency is recommending that Sirturo (bedaquiline) be granted a conditional market authorisation for pulmonary multidrug-resistant tuberculosis as part of a combination therapy. The new drug has been developed by Janssen Therapeutics.

AstraZeneca Plc is to take full control of a portfolio of diabetes assets being managed jointly with Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) in order to strengthen its position in the market. The upfront payment to BMS is $2.7 billion with potential milestones of $1.4 billion.