PERTH, Australia – Soft tissue regeneration company Aroa Biosurgery Ltd. completed a A$47 million (US$34.72 million) placement on the Australian Securities Exchange that will allow the company to accelerate and broaden its pipeline. What sets Auckland, New Zealand-based Aroa apart from other regenerative tissue companies is the rate of tissue regeneration with Aroa’s scaffold and its affordability, Aroa founder and CEO Brian Ward told BioWorld.

PARIS – Peek Health SA raised $3.5 million in series A funding to ramp development of its 3D pre-op digital planning tools used in orthopedic surgery. This investment was led by two Portuguese venture capital firms: Grosvenor House of Investments SCR SA and Portugal Ventures SA.

LONDON – Topas Therapeutics GmbH announced the close of a series B round at €40 million (US$47.5 million), to take forward its two lead immune tolerizing programs. The first, TPM-203, is in clinical development for the treatment of the rare, severe autoimmune skin disorder pemphigus vulgaris, while the second, TPM-502, is due to enter the clinic in celiac disease before the end of the year.

PERTH, Australia – After raising A$10 million (US$7.36 million) in its initial public offering on the Australian Securities Exchange, BCAL Diagnostics Ltd. is racing to commercialize its noninvasive, blood-based in vitro diagnostic to detect breast cancer. The Breast Cancer Associated Lipids (BCAL) test is taken via a blood sample and analyzed for lipid biomarkers.

Gene therapy’s one-and-done mindset proved “a boon and a bane,” said Avak Kahvejian, general partner at Flagship Pioneering. “You have one shot to get it right, is what that really means,” and his firm founded Ring Therapeutics Inc. to design redosable drugs in the space.