French biotech Pep-Therapy SAS is taking its potentially first-in-class cancer cell penetrating peptide technology into the clinic, after raising €5.4 million (US$6.4 million) in an extended series A funding round. The series A fundraiser initially brought in €2.6 million, but the extension brought in a further €1.6 million in equity from Anaxago, i&i Prague and Badge as well as a €1 million loan from Bpifrance.
Three companies that began trading on Nasdaq on July 16 are contributing to this year’s record-setting pace of biotech IPOs. Erasca Inc., which is looking to raise $300 million, led the pack with shares (NASDAQ:ERAS) ending the day at $17.43, an 8.94% rise from the opening asking price of $16.
Having created a profitable preclinical services business, Biocytogen Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd. is now working to develop its own pipeline of antibody therapeutics, recently inking a partnership with China Resources Biopharmaceutical Co. Ltd to develop drugs for oncology and immunology indications and raising “tens of millions of dollars” in a new financing round to support the development of its antibody drugs.
Private biopharma investment in 2021 continues to outpace that of the past two years as two gene therapy companies, Shape Therapeutics Inc. and Kriya Therapeutics Inc., posted series B financings this week totaling more than $200 million.
Paq Therapeutics Inc. closed a $30 million series A round to take forward a novel approach to the targeted degradation and removal of a wide range of molecular substrates and defective organelles by developing drug molecules that can tap into autophagy, the cell’s general waste disposal and recycling system.
Cancer Research UK took a significant hit when its U.K.-wide charity shop chain had to close last year because of the pandemic. But, according to latest figures, its commercial arm could help it to bounce back after seeing its income more than double in the recent biotech boom. The organization reported record levels of investment in its spinout companies, which more than doubled in 2020-2021 compared with the previous year, jumping from £400 million (US$555 million) to £822 million (US$1.14 billion)
RSS
