The restrictions on elective surgeries as hospitals struggle to manage the unfolding global pandemic are hitting medical device companies particularly hard. Abiomed Inc., which specializes in a tiny, minimally invasive heart pump to support heart failure patients, saw its first fiscal fourth-quarter revenue flatten as procedures were postponed. Still, U.S. revenue remained stronger than Wall Street had expected, even as ex-U.S. revenue had deeper declines.
9 Meters Biopharma Inc., of Raleigh, N.C., is newly born from the merger of Innovate Biopharmaceuticals Inc. and privately held RDD Pharma Ltd., of New York and Tel Aviv, Israel. About $22 million in new financing, led by Orbimed Advisors Ltd., and the signing of another merger into the new company of Richmond, Calif.-based Naia Rare Diseases Inc., which develops GLP-1 to treat short bowel syndrome, completes 9 Meters’ new path.
DUBLIN – Shares in Valneva SE rose by as much as 32% during early trading April 30 on news that Pfizer Inc. is paying $130 million up front to in-license its Lyme disease candidate vaccine, VLA-15.
BEIJING – Shanghai-based bispecifc antibody startup Epimab Biotherapeutics Inc. entered a research collaboration and license agreement with Brisbane, Australia-based QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute to look for novel bispecific target combinations, a move that could expand the startup’s pipeline.
BEIJING – Nanobody startup Sysvax Inc. is developing a recombinant protein vaccine and a nanobody therapeutic for COVID-19, while trying to extend the half-life of potential COVID-19 treatments with its expertise in this smallest possible antibody format.
HONG KONG – Not even the 9,500 kilometers between Cambridge, U.K., and Tokyo, or the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, could prevent Japan’s Astellas Pharma Inc. from completing its acquisition of Cambridge-based Nanna Therapeutics Ltd. in a £12 million (US$14.78 million) deal.
LONDON – Leading genome sequencing groups are launching the first meta-analysis in the hunt for genetic factors that explain why some people have worse COVID-19 symptoms than others, after agreeing to share patient sequence data from around the world. The COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative (CHGI), set up by scientists at the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM), now includes 151 registered studies that are searching for genetic variation associated with severity and outcomes.
Weeks after raising an oversubscribed $60 million series A, Affinia Therapeutics Inc., of Waltham, Mass., is collaborating with Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. in a far larger deal, one potentially worth more than $1.6 billion.
HONG KONG – Not even the 9,500 kilometers between Cambridge, U.K., and Tokyo, or the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, could prevent Japan’s Astellas Pharma Inc. from completing its acquisition of Cambridge-based Nanna Therapeutics Ltd. in a £12 million (US$14.78 million) deal.
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