The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Actemra (tocilizumab), given alone or in combination with methotrexate, for the treatment of active systemic juvenile idiopathic arthritis in children aged two or over. Roche is the developer
Transgene SA of France has entered into a collaboration with two other companies to evaluate a new therapeutic vaccine strategy against the hepatitis C virus (HCV). The partners are ChronTechPharma AB and Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc.
In another twist to the long-running Avastin saga, the European Medicines Agency has reversed an earlier opinion and its now recommending that Avastin (bevacizumab), plus capecitabine, be approved for first-line metastatic breast cancer.
The Roche Group released mixed sales figures for the first 2011 quarter but said that it is still on target to achieve its sales projection for the full year of a low single-digit rise expressed in local currencies. The projection excludes sales of its influenza drug, Tamiflu.
4SC AG has licensed, on an exclusive basis, its investigational pan-histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor for oncology, resminostat, to Yakult Honsha Co Ltd for development and commercialisation in Japan.
F-Star GmbH, the Austrian antibody engineering firm, has raised €15 million from a syndicate of venture capital firms led by SR-One. Other participants were Atlas Venture, Aescap Venture, Novo Ventures, TVM Capital, Merck Serono Ventures and MP Healthcare.
An advisory panel of the US Food and Drug Administration has recommended that Afinitor (everolimus) be approved for patients with advanced neuroendocrine tumours of pancreatic origin, according to Novartis, the drug’s developer.
Medivir AB has announced an offer to acquire the Nordic speciality pharmaceutical company, BioPhausia AB, in a cash and share offer that values BioPhausia at about SEK 565 million (€62 million). The offer was announced on 11 April 2011.
Cellectis SA of France has arranged financing for an ambitious project to produce induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) on an industrial scale so that they can be used for a range of commercial applications, including the production of red blood cells.
Venture-capital backed Heptares Therapeutics Ltd of the UK has received £1.7 million upfront in a collaboration deal with the Takeda Pharmaceutical Company to discover drugs for central nervous system disorders focused on a GPCR target.