Lunit Inc. has raised $61 million in a fundraising round, getting it closer to its planned list on South Korea’s Kosdaq. “We will use these funds as working capital to research and develop artificial intelligence (AI) products, as well as developing our global market,” a Lunit spokesperson told BioWorld. Seoul, South Korea-based Lunit secured new investors for this round, including U.S. life science investors Healthquest Capital, Casdin Capital LLC, and The American Cancer Society’s Brightedge fund. Asia Pacific-based global health care investors included Tybourne Capital Management Ltd. and NSG Ventures Pte. Ltd.
PERTH, Australia – Australian health technology company Planet Innovation is expanding its footprint into the U.S. with the acquisition of the North American operations of Germany’s medical device manufacturer BIT Analytical Instruments GmbH.
PERTH, Australia – Medical device and analytics company Trajan Group Holdings Ltd. has acquired the business and manufacturing facilities of Axel Semrau GmbH & Co., based in Sprockhövel, Germany, for AU$26 million (US$18.7 million), expanding the company’s global operations. Axel Semrau develops and manufactures laboratory automation and chromatography software and detection systems. The acquisition is the company’s most significant to date and broadens the company’s manufacturing base in Europe, Trajan founder and CEO Stephen Tomisich told BioWorld.
PERTH, Australia – Cardiovascular medical device company EBR Systems Inc. announced a planned AU$110 million (US$79.7 million) initial public offering (IPO) on Australia’s Securities Exchange to bring its wireless cardiac pacing system for heart failure to market. The IPO is planned for Nov. 24, 2021, and the funds raised will allow the company to complete pivotal trials for its wireless, inside-the-left-ventricle-of-the-heart pacing system called WiSE (wireless stimulation endocardially).
PERTH, Australia – Radiopharm Theranostics Ltd. raised AU$50 million (US$36.4 million) in an oversubscribed IPO to advance its platform of radiopharmaceutical products for both diagnostic and therapeutic uses.
A Chinese patent covering methods and compositions for the use of CRISPR-Cas9 in eukaryotes has been granted to Dublin-based Ers Genomics Ltd., making what Michael Arciero, vice president of intellectual property and commercial development at the company, called “a strong but not surprising statement by China,” which has made the biotechnology industry one of its top national priorities.
Sotio Biotech AS has licensed Legochem Biosciences Inc.’s technology for five new antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) in a deal that could bring the latter over $1 billion. Prague, Czech Republic-based Sotio will have the rights to deploy Legochem’s Conjuall and potent linker-payload platform, including multiple different payloads, for five therapeutic programs targeting solid tumors and combine its proprietary antibodies with it.
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) has agreed to provide Clover Biopharmaceuticals Ltd. with an additional $36.9 million to support development of SCB-2019, a recombinant trimeric Spike-protein subunit COVID-19 vaccine.
Top-line results of Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd.’s phase III Quantum-First study, testing the addition of quizartinib to chemotherapy vs. chemotherapy alone for adults with newly diagnosed FLT3-ITD positive acute myeloid leukemia (AML), found the combination therapy provided a “statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement” in overall survival vs. standard treatment alone, meeting the trial’s primary endpoint, Ken Takeshita, global head of R&D at Daiichi Sankyo, told BioWorld.
LONDON – Sosei Heptares is to get $100 million up front in a potential $2.6 billion deal with Neurocrine Biosciences Inc., in which the pair will develop muscarinic receptor agonists in the treatment of schizophrenia, dementia and other neuropsychiatric disorders. San Diego-based Neurocrine is taking rights to a portfolio of small molecules against specific subtypes of the muscarinic receptor family, targeting M1 and M4 alone, plus a dual M1/M4 agonist.