After struggling in the past year, Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc. will collaborate with Astrazeneca plc to develop eplontersen for treating transthyretin amyloidosis, which is systemic, progressive and fatal. At stake for Ionis is $2.9 billion in potential sales-related milestone payments.

Nextsense Inc. reported partnerships with global biopharma company UCB SA, Heraus Holding GmbH, the University of California San Diego and Emory University at its first public appearance at the American Epilepsy Society Annual Meeting in Chicago this past weekend. The Nextsense platform uses biosensing earbuds to perform ongoing electroencephalograms (EEGs).

PERTH, Australia – Health care artificial intelligence (AI) company Harrison.ai has raised AU$129 million (US$97 million) in a series B round that will expand the company’s global footprint by commercializing its comprehensive clinical AI applications.

Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB shares (STO:SOBI) fell 25% Dec. 3 as investors behind Agnafit Bidco AB, previously poised to pay about SEK72.17 billion (US$7.97 billion) for the company, withdrew their bid as shares tendered fell just short of the 90% needed to complete the deal. The bid was seen as likely to succeed after Investor AB, which owns 35% of the capital and votes in the company, commonly called Sobi, supported it. However, with only 87.3% of outstanding shares tendered as of Dec. 3, Agnafit decided to drop the offer, foregoing further extension of the acceptance period, which was earlier extended by ten days to Nov. 26 in hopes of collecting enough support.

PARIS – Peters Surgical SAS is being sold off. Its majority shareholder, Eurazeo Small-mid buyout, the investment arm for small and medium-sized enterprises at Eurazeo SE, has been preparing Peters Surgical for sale for the last five months. Investment banks DC Advisory and Allinvest are currently engaged in the sale of the company. This round is part of a divestment program at Eurazeo. Interestingly, disposals finalized since the beginning of the year have tripled, reaching $3.5 billion. The Eurazeo group, with a market cap of $6.65 billion on the Euronext Paris stock exchange, is pursuing its ambitious asset disposal program in a buoyant environment.

Novartis AG, keen to expand its central nervous system franchise as generics chase down crown jewel Gilenya (fingolimod), has secured rights from UCB SA to co-develop and commercialize two potential Parkinson's disease therapies for $150 million up front and milestone payments approaching $1.5 billion.

Japan’s Astellas Pharma Inc. is continuing its investment in gene therapies, following up its $3 billion acquisition of Audentes Therapeutics Inc. with a technology licensing deal with Dyno Therapeutics Inc. potentially worth more than $1.6 billion. Central to the deal is Cambridge, Mass.-based Dyno’s adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector technology, which can be used to direct gene therapies to skeletal and cardiac muscle.

GE Healthcare Ltd. is expanding its cancer technology capabilities through new alliances with artificial intelligence (AI) companies and researchers. The company said it is teaming up with U.K.-based Optellum Ltd. to advance lung cancer diagnostics, as well as collaborating with the University of Cambridge to develop an AI application that integrates cancer patient data from multiple sources into a single interface.