A Switzerland-based diagnostics company, Biocartis SA, has raised €10 million in a Series A financing round led by Aescap Venture of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The company has technology for eventual use in in vitro diagnostic settings.
Merck & Co Inc has expanded its research alliance with Galapagos NV of Belgium to include the discovery of potential small molecule drugs in atherosclerosis. This raises the potential milestones from the alliance to €400 million, Galapagos said.
Amarin Corporation Plc of Dublin has raised $70 million in a private placement with institutional investors that will finance Phase 3 trials of the omega-3 drug, AMR 101, for cardiac diseases.
Prosensa BV of Leiden has granted GlaxoSmithKline an exclusive licence for its gene-correcting treatment for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, PRO051, and has entered into an alliance that could make three other of Prosensa’s DMD products available to GSK.
Heptares Therapeutics Ltd has entered into an option agreement with the Novartis Option Fund under which the UK company will make its technology available to Novartis to generate drug leads against an unspecified GPCR target.
Three US-based scientists have been awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work in explaining how chromosomes are copied during cell division and how they are protected against degradation.
The private equity firm, Celtic Therapeutics Holdings LP, has announced plans to invest up to $15 million in the clinical investigation of a cancer drug developed by the privately-owned UK company, Spirogen Ltd.
A two-year old Swedish company with a novel strategy for treating cancer, Axcentua Pharmaceuticals AB, has raised an undisclosed amount of money in a Series A financing round. It will use the funds to bring its lead molecule into the clinic.
Sir Greg Winter, a founder of both Cambridge Antibody Technology and Domantis, has put his scientific and entrepreneurial skills to work again as the scientific co-founder of new company in the UK that is developing mini-antibodies.
UCB SA, which develops and sells treatments for diseases of the central nervous system and the immune system, has successfully floated a €500 million convertible eurobond issue.