The recent uptick in med-tech deals is a sign technologies that are solving unmet clinical needs are finally coming to fruition, Antoine Papiernik, chairman and managing partner at Sofinnova Partners, told BioWorld in an interview.
Kurma Partners has announced the first closing of its Biofund IV at €140 million (US$154.5 million) and is pressing ahead to a final close of €250 million this time next year. The fund will make 16 to 20 investments, with half the money due to be invested in novel science that Kurma teases out of academic labs and the remainder in established VC-funded companies. The Paris-based firm is agnostic about which fields or disease areas it invests in and will prospect for breakthrough research anywhere in Europe.
Recordati SpA is shelling out $825 million up front for global rights to Enjaymo (sutimlimab), the only therapy approved for treating the rare disease cold agglutinin disease. In the deal with Sanofi SA, which won U.S. FDA approval of the antibody drug in 2022, the Italian pharma agreed to pay up to $250 million more should net sales reach certain thresholds.
Kurma Partners has announced the first closing of its Biofund IV at €140 million (US$154.5 million) and is pressing ahead to a final close of €250 million this time next year. The fund will make 16 to 20 investments, with half the money due to be invested in novel science that Kurma teases out of academic labs and the remainder in established VC-funded companies. The Paris-based firm is agnostic about which fields or disease areas it invests in and will prospect for breakthrough research anywhere in Europe.
Dark genome miner Enara Bio Ltd. has closed a $32.5 million series B that will see the lead program targeting the first of a novel class of cancer antigens it has discovered through to the clinic. Enara calls these cancer antigens “dark antigens” (the name is trademarked). It says they can be found in solid tumors irrespective of the immune phenotype, and are often expressed at high prevalence across multiple different tumors.
Dark genome miner Enara Bio Ltd. has closed a $32.5 million series B that will see the lead program targeting the first of a novel class of cancer antigens it has discovered through to the clinic. Enara calls these cancer antigens “dark antigens” (the name is trademarked). It says they can be found in solid tumors irrespective of the immune phenotype, and are often expressed at high prevalence across multiple different tumors.
Resolution Therapeutics Ltd. is preparing for a phase I/II trial of its autologous engineered macrophage cell therapy, RTX-001, in the treatment of end-stage liver disease and has raised £63.5 million (US$83.3 million) to complete the study and to add further fibrotic and inflammatory disease programs to its portfolio. Recruitment to the study, to be conducted at 15 sites in Spain and the U.K., is due to start before the end of 2024, with the monocyte-derived patient macrophages being processed and modified at a facility in Edinburgh.
Roche AG’s new test using its temperature-activated generation of signal technology is the next step in PCR evolution, Igor Kozlov, head of Reagent Research and Design at Roche Diagnostics Solutions, told BioWorld. The Cobas Respiratory flex test can detect up to 12 of the most common respiratory viruses using a single PCR test.
Loqus23 Therapeutics Ltd. has raised £35 million (US$46.6 million) in a series A to take forward small molecules it has discovered for the treatment of Huntington’s disease and other conditions that are driven by DNA mismatch repair (MMR). MMR fixes DNA insertions, deletions and misincorporation errors that occur during transcription and/or cellular replication. Smaller repairs are directed by MutSalpha, a protein that binds single base mismatches, while MutSbeta handles larger insertion/deletion loops. Huntington’s and other triplet repeat diseases are caused when trinucleotide repeats accumulate in somatic DNA to the extent that they interfere with protein expression.
Owkin Inc. partnered with Astrazeneca plc to develop an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tool to pre-screen for germline BRCA mutations (gBRCAm) in breast cancer directly from digitized pathology slides. The companies hope that the gBRCA pre-screening solution will not only transform patients’ lives but bring value to health care systems.
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