Financing

Advaxis Inc. priced an underwritten offering expected to raise $16 million.

Aruna Bio Inc. said it completed a $13 million financing.

Atara Biotherapeutics Inc. priced an underwritten public offering with gross proceeds expected to be approximately $150 million.

Benchling Inc. said it closed a $34.5 million series C funding round.

Cara Therapeutics Inc. priced an underwritten public offering for expected gross proceeds of approximately $126.5 million.

Forty Seven Inc. closed its public offering for gross proceeds of approximately $86.3 million.

Frequency Therapeutics Inc. closed a $62 million series C financing.

Oryzon Genomics SA said it raised €20 million (US$22.3 million).

Ra Pharmaceuticals Inc. priced an underwritten public offering for expected gross proceeds of $130 million.

Seattle Genetics Inc. priced an underwritten public offering for expected gross proceeds of approximately $500 million.

X-vax Technology Inc. raised $56 million in an upsized series A financing.

Deals

Celltrion Inc. and Nan Fung Group Holdings Ltd. said they have built a joint venture named Vcell Healthcare Ltd., geared toward the Chinese market. Under a licensing agreement, Vcell will acquire the exclusive rights in mainland China to develop, supply and commercialize Celltrion's three biosimilar products, Remsima (CT-P13), Truxima (CT-P10) and Herzuma (CT-P6).

Durect Corp. granted Gilead Sciences Inc. exclusive worldwide rights to develop and commercialize a long-acting injectable HIV product created with its platform, Saber, in a deal that could generate more than $300 million.

Exscientia Ltd., an artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery company, said it entered a collaboration with Rallybio Inc., to accelerate the discovery of small-molecule drug therapeutics for undisclosed rare disease indications.

Gilead Sciences Inc. licensed three preclinical antiviral programs from Novartis AG to treat human rhinovirus, influenza and herpes viruses.

Myokardia Inc. announced the re-acquisition of U.S. royalty rights to mavacamten and MYK-224 from Sanofi SA for $50 million up front, with an additional $30 million payable to Sanofi by June 30, 2020.

Predictive Oncology Inc. said its subsidiary, Helomics, has established a joint collaborative agreement with UPMC to study the use of artificial intelligence to improve clinical decision-making for ovarian cancer patients.

Sanofi SA signed an agreement with Roche Holding AG for the exclusive over-the-counter (OTC) rights to Tamiflu influenza vaccine in the U.S.

Silence Therapeutics plc signed a deal with Mallinckrodt plc in a potential $693 million-per-asset collaboration to develop siRNA therapeutics that block the complement inflammatory cascade.

Spring Bank Pharmaceuticals Inc. entered a research agreement with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the NIH, to evaluate its hepatitis B virus antisense oligonucleotide compounds.

Zambon SpA is acquiring Breath Therapeutics BV for €140 million (US$155.8 million) up front plus up to €360 million more in regulatory and commercial milestones linked to the progress of Breath's drug-device combo, which is currently in phase III development for bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome.

. . . And more

Amgen Inc. and Allergan plc launched Mvasi (bevacizumab-awwb), a biosimilar to Avastin (bevacizumab, Genentech Inc./Roche Holding AG) that was approved by the FDA in September 2017.

Bayer AG received FDA approval for its MRI contrast agent, Gadavist (gadobutrol) injection, in adults with suspected coronary artery disease.

Motif Bio plc received a deficiency notice from Nasdaq indicating that for the last 30 consecutive business days, it no longer met the $35 million minimum market value of listed securities standard required for continued listing of its American depository shares.

Regulus Therapeutics Inc. received a new partial clinical hold placed by the FDA on its phase I test of RGLS-4326, an oligonucleotide it's developing for the treatment of autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease.

The University of California (UC) in Berkeley, Calif., said the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded two new patents to UC, the University of Vienna and Emmanuelle Charpentier covering methods of the CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology.

Xylyx Bio Inc. has joined the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute, a public-private U.S. manufacturing initiative that supports the manufacturing of engineered tissues and tissue-related technologies.