DUBLIN – A meaty licensing deal with Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. is as good a time as any to unveil a new corporate identity. Nykode Therapeutics AS, the Norwegian immunotherapy firm formerly known as Vaccibody, is banking $30 million up front, another $20 million as an equity investment, and could earn up to $875 million more in development and commercial milestones across a multiproduct deal to develop vaccines for cancer and infectious disease.
A little over a month after Versant Ventures-back Vividion Therapeutics Inc. filed to raise $100 million in an IPO, Bayer AG is paying $1.5 billion up front, with the promise of $500 million more in milestone payments, to take over the firm and its small-molecule precision oncology and immunology platform.
HONG KONG – D3 Bio Inc. is the new kid on the biopharma block in Shanghai, kicking off with a $200 million series A financing backed by some of Asia’s most prominent venture capital firms.
HONG KONG – D3 Bio Inc. is the new kid on the biopharma block in Shanghai, kicking off with a $200 million series A financing backed by some of Asia’s most prominent venture capital firms.
Detailed research over the past decade has shown that that the protein stimulator of interferon genes (STING) is a master regulator of type I interferons and as such plays an essential role in activating innate immunity. STING’s importance in orchestrating the body’s response to pathogenic, tumor, or self-DNA in the cytoplasm has made it a hot target in immunology research and drug discovery and several biopharma companies have started programs dedicated to this area spanning infectious and inflammatory diseases as well as cancer.
Much of the research on the immune response in patients with COVID-19 has focused on the humoral antibody response. Adaptive Biotechnologies Corp., on the other hand, has focused on cellular immunity to measure the T-cell response to infection with SARS-CoV-2.
Not only did newly emergent Kyverna Therapeutics Inc. burst out of the gate with a $25 million series A, but it enhanced its entrance with a deal from Gilead Sciences Inc., one of the company’s initial funders, potentially worth $587.5 million.
DUBLIN – Truffle Capital closed off its fifth Biomedtech fund with a €250 million (US$279 million) raise, which it will deploy in about a dozen companies located mainly in France. The fund took a little longer to close than originally planned but it is significantly larger than it had originally intended. “Our initial objective was €200 million,” Truffle Capital CEO and co-founder Philippe Pouletty told BioWorld MedTech.
DUBLIN – Truffle Capital closed off its fifth Biomedtech fund with a €250 million (US$279 million) raise, which it will deploy in about a dozen companies located mainly in France. The fund took a little longer to close than originally planned but it is significantly larger than it had originally intended. “Our initial objective was €200 million,” Truffle Capital CEO and co-founder Philippe Pouletty told BioWorld.
