Marking its second acquisition this year after snapping up cancer-focused Five Prime Therapeutics Inc., Amgen Inc. is adding to its inflammatory disease portfolio through the purchase of Seattle-based Rodeo Therapeutics Corp. The deal includes $55 million up front for the private company's shareholders, plus contingent milestone payments worth up to an additional $666 million. Rodeo's lead preclinical program targets 15-prostaglandin dehydrogenase to increase tissue levels of prostaglandin PGE2.
LONDON – Sosei Heptares Ltd. has signed up Glaxosmithkline plc to take on the orphan G protein-coupled (GPCR) target GPR35, in a deal worth a potential $481 million.
LONDON – Engitix Ltd has secured Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.’s endorsement of its extracellular matrix (ECM) technology in a potential $500 million deal in liver fibrosis.
LONDON – Engitix Ltd has secured Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.’s endorsement of its extracellular matrix (ECM) technology in a potential $500 million deal in liver fibrosis.
LONDON – Enthera Pharmaceuticals Srl has announced the largest international series A to date for an Italian biotech, closing a €28 million (US$32.9 million) round, to take programs in type 1 diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) into phase I development.
LONDON – Enterome SA has raised €46.3 million (US$52.6 million) in a mixture of debt and equity, enabling it to take a new type of cancer vaccine, based on microbiome-derived antigens that mimic neoantigens expressed on tumor cells, into the clinic.
Surrozen Inc., a startup developing regenerative medicines leveraging tissue-specific Wnt modulation, has raised $50 million in series C financing. Proceeds from the round will be used to advance the company’s top two antibodies to the clinic, one for the treatment of severe liver disease and a second for moderate to severe inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
LONDON – With results of its first phase I trial imminent, inflammasome specialist Nodthera Ltd. has raised $55 million in a series B round, providing funding for phase II proof-of-concept studies and to advance a second, brain-penetrant, compound to the clinic.
Second Genome Inc. (SG) CEO Karim Dabbagh said his firm’s deal with Gilead Sciences Inc. is “pretty significant, given some of the other deals in the microbiome and inflammatory bowel disease [IBD] space,” telling BioWorld the potential $1.5 billion-plus agreement involves “biomarkers in multiple disease areas on five of Gilead’s portfolio programs in inflammation, fibrosis and oncology. Associated with that is a drug discovery collaboration around five targets in the context of IBD.”
LONDON – Twenty years on from sequencing of the first draft of the human genome and the associated hype, 2019 was the year that the science of genomics truly began to make an impact in health care.
