Europe was a bigger counterpart to China in pharmaceutical dealmaking than the U.S. last year, speakers at Chinabio Partnering Forum said April 23, and the trend is likely to continue in 2025 with the shuttering of U.S. capital and volatility ailing global markets.
Synthetic lethality specialist Tessellate Bio NV has closed its first deal, agreeing to a €500 million-plus (US$570 million) research and license agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, to develop small molecules targeting tumors that depend on alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) for their growth.
Roche AG has become the latest pharmaceutical company to respond to the Trump administration’s threat to impose tariffs, saying it will invest $50 billion in drug and diagnostics manufacturing in the U.S. over the next five years. That figure matches a similar commitment by its Basel, Switzerland-based neighbor, Novartis AG, which on April 11 said it would be investing almost $50 billion in the U.S., also over the next five years.
Newco Brink Therapeutics SAS is poised to work on the next chapter in genome editing after raising €3.5 million (US$4 million) in seed funding to discover and develop programmable recombinase enzymes.
The Abu Dhabi health care company M42 is to make an investment in U.K.-based longevity specialist Juvenescence as a route to moving into drug discovery and development, with the two forming a partnership to work together on products that extend the healthy lifespan and improve the treatment of chronic diseases.
Oral peptide delivery specialist Cyprumed GmbH is about to find out if the high bioavailability of its tablet formulations seen in animal models will translate across to humans, after signing a $493 million license and option agreement with Merck & Co. Inc.
As new clinical trials regulations were signed into law in the U.K., an analysis of 4,616 submissions to conduct studies has highlighted what is required for the updated law to translate into a more efficient, streamlined and adaptable regulatory framework.
Two days after pharma companies sounded an alarm that their investments were headed out of Europe, Novartis AG has announced plans to increase investment in the U.S. by $23 billion, bringing the total it invests over the next five years to nearly $50 billion.
The U.K. government is to invest £500 million (US$645 million) in a health data research service that will provide a single point of access to national-scale anonymized patient records, ending the need to navigate different systems or make multiple applications to use information.
The on-again, off-again U.S. tariffs are off again, at least for now, for more than 75 countries that have reached out to the Trump administration to negotiate instead of retaliating. The 90-day pause will provide some breathing room for the med-tech industry. Pharmaceuticals and active pharmaceutical ingredients were among the few products exempted from the reciprocal tariffs, but that exemption for pharmaceuticals was expected to be short-lived. Meanwhile, pharma CEOs warned European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen April 8 that, unless the EU quickly changes its policy, pharmaceutical research, development and manufacturing is increasingly likely to be directed to the U.S.
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