Tubulis GmbH has added considerable momentum to its effort to build a pipeline of novel antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) by closing a €60 million (US$63.2 million) series B round. CEO and co-founder Dominik Schumacher told BioWorld the cash would enable the Munich-based firm to generate clinical proof of concept, build a clinical pipeline and continue development of its platform technologies.
Epitopea Ltd. raised $13.6 million in seed financing to take forward a new cancer immunotherapy platform based on the identification of a new class of tumor-specific antigens encoded by non-canonical genomic sequences.
Isofol Medical AB’s slow reveal of data from its phase III registration trial of arfolitixorin in first-line metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) will not reach a conclusion until the fourth quarter of this year. The news follows a December 2021 warning to investors that an unexplained level of therapy switches occurring in the absence of disease progression would impair its analysis of a key secondary endpoint, the rate of progression-free survival.
Shares in Medincell SA dropped 29.1% Apr. 20 on news that the U.S. FDA slapped a complete response letter (CRL) on an NDA for an extended release, long-acting formulation of risperidone, which it is co-developing with Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd. as a maintenance treatment for schizophrenia.
Versant Ventures is committing $50 million in series A funding to Cimeio Therapeutics Inc., which aims to bring new possibilities in terms of disease targeting and safety to bear on a wide range of cell therapy applications, including hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and adoptive cell transfer.
Shares in Sierra Oncology Inc. (NASDAQ:SRRA) surged 38.5% to $54.75 on April 13 as Glaxosmithkline plc made a $55-per-share offer for the company, which values it at $1.9 billion. The offer represents a premium of about 39% on Sierra’s April 12 closing share price of $39.52 and a premium of about 63% over its volume-weighted average share price over the last 30 trading days.
Shares in Gensight Biologics SA dropped by as much as 41% April 7 on news that the Paris-based gene therapy firm failed to complete a second manufacturing campaign within five months, a setback that could delay a commercial launch of its lead product, Lumevoq, by at least a year.
European biotechnology firms engaged in drug discovery and development raised $1.96 billion in equity investment during the first quarter. That tally represents a drop of 67% on the $5.888 billion invested during the same quarter of 2021, when the COVID-19 crisis drove global and European biotechnology investing to unprecedented levels.
DUBLIN – A strong performance in the final quarter of 2021 pushed equity investment in European biotech firms engaged in discovering and developing therapeutics to a new record of $15.193 billion, a 19.8% increase on last year’s total of $12.682 billion. European biotech firms have now set a new investment benchmark for each of the past five years.
DUBLIN – ITM Isotope Technologies Munich (ITM) SE has secured its first radiopharmaceutical licensing deal in China, a pact with Grand Pharmaceutical Group Ltd. involving two radiopharmaceutical candidates, as well as a companion diagnostic for one of them.
