LONDON – A 2.5-year investigation into the low level of uptake of biosimilars in Europe has concluded that – in the absence of automatic substitution – a hearts-and-minds education campaign covering physicians, payers and patients is the only lever that can be pulled at a pan-European level to drive the growth of the market.

DUBLIN, Ireland – Opsona Therapeutics Ltd. raised €33 million (US$43.2 million) in a Series C funding round to take forward a first-in-class Toll-like receptor 2 (TLR-2) inhibitor, OPN-305, into a Phase II trial for preventing delayed graft function (DGF) in high-risk kidney transplant patients.

LONDON – TiGenix NV unveiled positive Phase IIa results for its Cx611 allogeneic stem cell therapy in the treatment of 53 rheumatoid arthritis patients whose disease was not responsive to disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDS) or biologics.

Allecra Therapeutics GmbH, a Franco-German start-up raised €15 million (US$19.6 million) in a Series A round to take two antibiotic development programs into the clinic and through clinical proof of concept.

• Santaris Pharma A/S, of Hoersholm, Denmark, said the European Patent Office issued minutes of the oral proceedings specifying the board of appeal's decision to maintain EP 1015469, the "Wengel" patent, with claims to amino- and thio-LNA nucleotides and oligonucleotides.

LONDON – A huge international study has established that a rare liver disease, which often occurs simultaneously with inflammatory bowel disease, is, in fact, a separate disease.

CHICAGO – Officials from the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) stammered through a question-and-answer period in which the audience sought the agency's definition of an "innovative" drug, its stance on orphan therapies and its policy with regard to biosimilars, during the first day of the BIO 2013 International Convention here.

While the development and approval of biosimilars, especially monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), are moving at a snail's pace in developed countries, the copycat drugs are racing forward in Asia and Latin America.

LONDON – Horizon Discovery Ltd. is in line for undisclosed up-front and milestone payments, followed by a potential $75 million from AstraZeneca plc in a deal that signals a move-up for the company, from providing services and products to applying its genome-editing technology in-house to uncover novel targets.

Continuing a flurry of 2013 dealmaking, nanomedicine firm BIND Therapeutics Inc. kicked off the BIO International Convention with a potential $199 million-plus deal with AstraZeneca plc to develop and commercialize an Accurin therapeutic based on a molecular targeted kinase inhibitor.