Shareholders of Elan Corporation Plc appear to have rebuffed an unsolicited takeover bid from the US financial group, Royalty Pharma, which valued the Ireland-based company at up to $12 per share for a total enterprise value of up to $7.3 billion.
Allecra Therapeutics GmbH, a recent startup company that intends to develop two treatments to overcome multi-resistant, gram-negative bacteria, has raised €15 million in a series A financing from Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners, Forbion Capital Partners and EMBL Ventures.
The workload of the European Medicines Agency increased in many areas during 2012 but notable was an increase in services to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
Auris Medical AG of Switzerland has secured CHF 47.1 million (38.7 million euro) in a Series C funding round led by Sofinnova Ventures of the US and Sofinnova Partners of Paris, France. The funding will support two inner ear therapies.
The US government has awarded Bavarian Nordic A/S of Denmark a new contract valued at up to $228 million for the continued supply of the smallpox vaccine Imvamune for the nation’s stockpile of strategic medicines.
Roche said that sales growth this year should be in line with the 4% increase reported in 2012 as demand for its oncology drugs remains strong. First quarter sales were up by 6% at constant exchange rates to CHF 11.6 billion (€9.54 billion).
GenSight Biologics, a privately-owned French company, has raised €32 million in a Series A round from a group of venture capital funds to develop a gene replacement therapy for Leber’s hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), a serious eye disorder.
A revolutionary T-cell immunotherapy developed by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania in the US has demonstrated a positive result in acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL), an aggressive form of childhood cancer. The results of the treatment, which was administered to two patients aged seven and 10, are scheduled to appear in the 18 April 2013 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine. A summary of the study was released early on 25 March.
AstraZeneca Plc said that its MedImmune biologics unit has acquired AlphaCore Pharma Inc of the US which has a product in development, ACP-501, for the acute treatment of atherosclerosis, a hardening of the artery walls following a build-up of cholesterol.
Clavis Pharma ASA said a Phase 3 trial of its lipid-conjugated therapy for patients with acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) failed to meet its endpoint of a significant survival advantage and that all development work with the compound will be stopped.