News

Microsoft Corp has made another foray into the biological sciences under a new collaboration with Novartis which will see both companies use artificial intelligence (AI) to energise drug discovery. The partnership, announced on 1 October, will involve joint research on new therapies for macular degeneration and support the development of cell and gene therapies. It will also use AI to explore new designs for future drugs.

STipe Therapeutics ApS, a 2018 spinout of Aarhus University in Denmark, has raised €20 million in Series A financing to advance a technology for targeting solid tumours by modulating the stimulator of interferon genes (STING) pathway. This pathway is a major driver of innate immunity.

Switzerland-based ADC Therapeutics SA has launched an initial public offering of its shares on the New York Stock Exchange which is expected to raise approximately $200 million. This comes ahead of an expected regulatory filing for its lead cancer therapy ADCT-402 in the second half of 2020.

BioNTech SE has formalised plans to raise approximately $250 million by way of an initial public share offering on the US Nasdaq market to support its portfolio of personalised medicines for cancer and infectious diseases. The company plans to offer 13.2 million American Depositary Shares (ADSs) to the public while underwriters will have a 30-day option to buy up to an additional 1.98 million ADSs.

JP Morgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, UBS Investment Bank and SVB Leerink are acting as lead joint book running managers.

Denmark-based Bavarian Nordic A/S has won approval for Jynneos, a vaccine to prevent smallpox and monkeypox diseases for people at high risk of infection or in cases of a public health emergency. The development of Jynneos is the result of a 15-year partnership between Bavarian Nordic and the US government. The vaccine will become part of the US strategic national stockpile, which is the country’s largest supply of potentially life-saving medicines.

Regulatory agencies in the US, Canada and Australia have jointly approved a new treatment for endometrial cancer, the most common cancer of the female genital tract. The approval is the first of a new collaboration under which the Food and Drug Administration, Health Canada and the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration review drug applications concurrently and issue a simultaneous decision afterwards.

The European Medicines Agency and the US Food Administration issued separate warnings on 13 September about ranitidine medicines, one of which is Zantac, which are widely used to treat heartburn and stomach ulcers. This follows tests that showed some products contained an impurity called N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), classified as a probable carcinogen.

A new US company, Trucode Gene Repair Inc, has been launched with $34 million in financing from Kleiner Perkins and GV, the venture capital arm of Alphabet Inc. The company is advancing an in vivo gene editing technology designed to correct mutations that cause genetic disorders such as sickle cell disease and cystic fibrosis.

Evotec SE is to conduct small molecule drug development across multiple therapeutic areas for Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd under a new multi-year collaboration designed to deliver clinical drug candidates. The upfront fee hasn’t been disclosed, but preclinical, clinical and commercial milestones could amount to more than $170 million per programme. The agreement covers at least five drug discovery programmes.

The French cell therapy start-up, TreeFrog Therapeutics SAS, has raised a further €3 million in funding for its stem cell production technology, only months after a €7.1 million Series A financing round. Based in Bordeaux, TreeFrog has a platform for mass producing stem cells, reportedly at a significantly lower cost than existing methods.