Like many small biotechnology companies Intercell AG has had to abandon promising projects because they failed in clinical trials. Yet, unlike many other companies Intercell has product revenue. Its vaccine against Japanese encephalitis, Ixiaro/Jespect, had sales of €21.6 million in 2011.
Intercell AG, the Austrian vaccine company, has obtained €25 million in debt and equity financing from BB Biotech AG, a Swiss investor in biotech companies. The financing is being made through a wholly-owned BB Biotech AG subsidiary.
Intercell had an active 2012 first quarter, increasing sales of its vaccine against Japanese encephalitis, while starting clinical studies in candidate vaccines for tuberculosis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Clostridium difficile.
The Roche group has stopped a Phase 3 trial of dalcetrapib, a novel treatment for patients with dyslipidemia due to the lack of clinically meaningful efficacy. The decision was taken on the recommendation of the data and safety monitoring board.
Action Pharma A/S has secured $110 million in cash from Abbott Laboratories Inc for its early-stage compound for the prevention of acute kidney injury associated with major cardiac surgery. The compound, AP214, had positive Phase 2b data.
Novartis said that a Phase 3 trial of its new drug for acromegaly, pasireotide, is superior to the current standard of care for the disease. The current standard of care, Sandostatin (octreotide), is an older Novartis medicine.
Biotec Pharmacon ASA, a Norwegian company that produces beta-glucans for immune modulation products and enzymes originating from fish reported lower first quarter sales because of destocking of shrimp alkaline phosphate (SAP) at its biggest customer.
Research published online in the journal Cell Stem Cell suggests that inhibiting a protein that regulates cell signalling could mitigate the process of ageing in haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs), key support mechanisms for blood cells and for the immune system.
Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd, a developer of gene sequencing technology, has raised £31.4 million in new funding in a private placement of its ordinary shares. Nearly all of the funds have been supplied by the company’s existing investors.
MorphySys AG expects to start reporting clinical data on its lead antibody compound, MOR103, in the third quarter of this year. A trial in patients with rheumatoid arthritis will report first, followed in 2013 by data from a trial in multiple sclerosis.