DUBLIN – Pierre Meulien will wrap up his five-year stint at the helm of Genome Canada at the end of next week, two months before he takes up the post of executive director of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), the €3.3 billion ($3.7 billion) public-private research partnership between the European Commission and the pharmaceutical industry.
DUBLIN – Bavarian Nordic A/S picked up a new $133 million supply contract for its Imvamune smallpox vaccine from the U.S. government, evidence that its infectious disease business continues to prosper, even if cancer immunotherapy is now the company's main value driver.
DUBLIN – Further information on the first death of a cancer patient undergoing oncolytic viral therapy with a vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) strain engineered to express human interferon-β (IFN-β) has emerged.
DUBLIN – Sembragiline, the selective monoamine oxidase B (MAO-B) inhibitor Evotec AG licensed to Roche Holding AG, failed to demonstrate any effect on cognition in a phase IIb trial in Alzheimer's disease, adding yet another disappointment to a lengthening list of setbacks in what remains one of medicine's most intractable conditions.
DUBLIN – Viratherapeutics GmbH raised €3.6 million (US$4 million) in a first closing of a series A round to complete preclinical research and to commence clinical trials of its lead oncolytic virus program, VSV-GP.
DUBLIN – Celyad SA became the eighth European firm to complete an IPO on Nasdaq this year, grossing $100 million in an offering that bridged the Atlantic, but the celebrations were cut short by a temporary halt in trading on the Euronext Exchange in Brussels late afternoon local time Friday, as the stock dropped 12 percent in response to a weak opening on Wall Street.
DUBLIN – Just two days after completing its branding makeover, Dublin-based Allergan plc (formerly Actavis plc) was back at its old M&A game, buying up a different kind of makeover specialist, Kythera Biopharmaceuticals Inc., in a cash-and-shares deal which values the latter at $75 per share or about $2.1 billion.
DUBLIN – Targovax AS and Oncos Therapeutics Oy are pooling their cancer immunotherapy resources in a 50-50 merger, which values each company at NOK235.7 million (US$30 million).
DUBLIN – Cosmo Pharmaceuticals SA is spinning out its dermatology unit, Cassiopea SpA, as an independent company, which plans to go public on the Six Swiss Exchange in Zurich.
