DUBLIN – Biontech SE closed a mammoth $325 million series B round to fund expansion of its clinical pipeline and to continue its ongoing investments in several different areas of manufacturing. The scale of the deal is of historic proportions – it is the biggest private equity investment in any comparable European biotechnology firm. It just edges ahead of Oxford, U.K.-based Immunocore Ltd.'s $320 million investment in 2015. 

DUBLIN – European biotechnology firms engaged in drug discovery and development raised an aggregate $3.172 billion in equity investment during the first half of 2019, down 19% on the same period last year. Unless there is a substantial pickup in the third and fourth quarters, the sector's record-breaking 2018 total of $7.715 billion looks to be out of reach. 

LONDON – With five expensive advanced therapies recently approved in Europe and a further five expected to get approval in the near term, it is vital the hurdles that delay and preclude access – and which have led to the commercial failure of earlier products – are removed.

Academic sponsors of clinical trials in the EU are the worst offenders when it comes to not posting completed trial results in the EudraCT database.

LONDON – Two new $250 million investment funds have been announced, promising long-term capital to new companies formed around the U.K.'s science base. Ahren Innovation Capital LP, which is supported by eight of Cambridge University's most prominent scientists – including two Nobel laureates – has closed at $250 million. Meanwhile, SV Health Investors announced the launch of its $250 million seventh fund, with the charity Cancer Research UK (CRUK) putting in $25 million as cornerstone investor.

The industry is again preparing for a no-deal Brexit, as political shifts indicate that the U.K. crashing out of the EU on Oct. 31 is an increasingly likely outcome.

PARIS – Six months after opening its first Biome digital innovation lab in San Francisco, the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis AG announces the opening of its first European digital innovation lab, located at the head office of its subsidiary in Rueil-Malmaison, France. The French hub Biome Paris boasts 250 square meters of space, allowing French or foreign-based startups to innovate and respond to specific challenges arising in the pharmaceutical sector. "It is a platform interface between ourselves as drug specialists, startups and internet giants. Biome Paris will make our treatments available to patients more quickly," Frédéric Collet, Novartis country president, France, told BioWorld MedTech.