News

Ariceum Therapeutics GmbH has raised a further €22.75 million from a venture capital syndicate to advance its radiopharmaceutical products for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The new funding complements an earlier Series A financing round of €25 million, bringing the total amount secured up to €47.75 million. The financing was co-led by new investors Andera Partners and Earlybird Venture Capital, with participation from the existing investor Pureos Bioventures.

Merck & Co Inc is to acquire the California-based biotechnology company Prometheus Biosciences Inc for $10.8 billion giving it a group of clinical assets directed against immune-mediated diseases. The target company’s lead asset is a monoclonal antibody for the treatment of ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease and other autoimmune conditions. Merck, through a subsidiary, will buy Prometheus for $200 per share in cash. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter.

Complement Therapeutics GmbH has raised €72 million in a Series A financing round to advance its portfolio of therapeutics for complement mediated diseases, initially focused on a gene therapy for the treatment of geographic atrophy. The Munich, Germany-based company is a spin-out of Manchester University, UK, and led by Rafiq Hasan, formerly head of ophthalmology at Bayer AG.

Repron Therapeutics Srl, a start-up biotech company with epigenetic silencing technology, was launched on 14 April following the completion of a €2 million seed financing round led by Claris Ventures of Turin, Italy. Based in Milan, Repron was founded by Vania Broccoli and Alessandro Sessa, both affiliated with San Raffaele Hospital, the largest private hospital group in Italy. The seed investment is expected to accelerate the development of the epigenetic platform which has been designed to silence oncogene networks in order to repress tumour recurrence in several cancer indications.

Neuromod Devices Ltd of Ireland has raised €30 million in financing to support the further commercialisation of its device for the treatment of tinnitus, a medical condition in which a person experiences ringing in one or both ears which isn’t caused by an external source. The funding consists of a €15 million expansion of an earlier Series B round and €15 million in venture debt from the European Investment Bank. The Series B extension was led by Panakès Partners of Milan, Italy.

A project initiated by the European Medicines Agency in 2022 to collect data on healthcare, disease prevalence, and the use of medicinal products, is entering its second year with plans to quadruple the number of studies. The project looks at real-world data, or data on a patient’s health from sources other than clinical trials, and real-world evidence, which is the analysis of this data.

The Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) of Ghana has approved a vaccine developed by the University of Oxford, UK, to prevent malaria – the first regulatory clearance for the product globally. The vaccine, R21/Matrix-M, is a subunit vaccine made up of a protein secreted by the malaria parasite and fused to a fragment of the hepatitis B virus. It is delivered alongside a plant-based adjuvant that enhances a person’s immune response. The adjuvant was developed by Novavax Inc of the US. The vaccine is being manufactured and scaled up by the Serum Institute of India PvT Ltd.

Switzerland-based Alentis Therapeutics AG has completed a Series C financing of $105 million to support the development of antibody therapeutics to treat cancer and fibrosis, rounding out the next stage in its anti claudin-1 development programme. Claudins are a group of membrane proteins that are essential for cell growth and differentiation. One of these proteins, claudin-1, is a target of considerable interest in the scientific community.

Novo Nordisk A/S is to collaborate with the Canadian biotech company Aspect Biosystems Ltd to use bioprinting technology to advance its work in cell therapies for diabetes and obesity. Novo is a leading producer of insulins and more recently glucagon-like peptide 1 medicines for the treatment of diabetes. It has also been building a presence in regenerative medicine.

The economic environment may be difficult, but there’s still plenty of money looking for good science, according to a panel of venture capitalists offering advice to start-ups at the Terrapinn Advanced Therapies Congress in London on 14 and 15 March. The conference came shortly after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, and all three VCs called on standard banks to become more start-up friendly, and advised start-ups to diversify their funds across a number of banks, wherever possible.