BEIJING – Cancer and autoimmune specialist Innocare Pharma Ltd., of Beijing, is seeking a pre-revenue listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX) to raise capital to advance its BTK inhibitor, ICP-022, to an NDA filing in China by the end of this year.

CEO Christine Bunt of Verseau Therapeutics Inc. told BioWorld that the company has prepared a "wave" of prospects from its macrophage checkpoint modulator (MCM) platform ready to crash upon the shores of cancer therapy, with 23 novel targets in the hopper.

It took Kandaswamy (Swamy) Vijayan, CEO of newly launched Plexium Inc., a few years to figure out where he needed to focus his creative energies. With an engineering background, he helped develop diagnostic tools. But he wanted to take the skill further. "For longest time, I thought diagnostics were the be all and end all," Vijayan told BioWorld MedTech.

Med-tech firms raising money in public or private financings.

DUBLIN – Sofinnova Partners closed its ninth early stage venture capital fund, Sofinnova Capital IX, at €333 million (US$369 million) and is bringing the same playbook to bear on current investment opportunities that it has followed in the recent past.

Aztherapies Inc., of Boston, said it closed a $26.3 million series C preferred equity financing co-led by Spinnaker Capital and Cosine, with participation from new and existing investors, including Drads Capital, IBS Capital and Wexford Capital.

It was at the constantly changing intersection of data science that Arsenal Biosciences Inc.'s CEO, Ken Drazan, found himself as he helped bring the company to life and to its $85 million series A fundraising.

PARIS – Incepto Medical SAS, of Paris, raised $6.2 million from three French venture capital funds – Axa Venture Partners, Bpifrance through its Patient Autonome Fund, and Cap Decisif – to develop its artificial intelligence (AI) medical imaging platform. "This funding round is a first step toward accelerating [the] rollout of our [AI] medical imaging solutions on a grand scale throughout France," Incepto CEO Antoine Jomier told BioWorld MedTech.

DUBLIN – Amarna Therapeutics BV raised €10 million (US$11.1 million) in new financing to move its SV40-based gene therapy platform, SVac, toward the clinic.

TORONTO – A total of $1.4 million in capital funding from 12 U.S., Canadian and European angel investors will help Toronto-based Cohesys Inc. complete preclinical animal studies, with an eye toward gaining approval for its nontoxic, adhesive tape for rebuilding facial bones.