Aignostics GmbH has embarked on raising a €20-€30 million (US$21.74-$32.61 million) series B round after validating its artificial intelligence (AI)-driven precision oncology platform by signing a co-development deal with Bayer AG. This is the first pharma partnership for the Berlin, Germany-based company. Financial terms were not disclosed, but Aignostics will receive an up-front payment and is eligible to receive success-based milestone payments and royalties on any commercialized therapies that result from the collaboration.
Trinity Biotech plc. paid $12.5 million to acquire Waveform Technologies Inc.’s biosensor and continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) assets. It also formed a partnership with Bayer AG to launch a CGM biosensor in China and India. These moves are part of Trinity’s transformation strategy to become a leading player in wearable biosensor technology.
Doubling efforts to thaw the global biotech capital freeze, the U.S. branch of Shanghai-based Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co. Ltd. will ramp up investment into U.S. clinical-stage assets through a new joint investment vehicle with American health care advisory firm Treehill Partners.
Bayer AG’s asundexian, considered one of the next generation class of anticoagulants and a potential blockbuster, has failed a phase III clinical trial in atrial fibrillation. The factor XIa inhibitor is one of three with a similar mechanism of action in late stage development by big companies.
Bayer AG said it will voluntarily withdraw Aliqopa (copanlisib) from the U.S. market after a confirmatory trial required by the FDA failed to meet the primary endpoint of progression-free survival vs. standard immunochemotherapy in patients with relapsed follicular lymphoma. It marks the latest stumble for PI3K-targeting drugs in the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma space.
The artificial intelligence company Recursion Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Bayer AG have upped the ante on their 2020 collaboration deal to include precision oncology, with the possibility of more than $1 billion in potential milestone payments for Recursion.
Nearly a year and a half after an interim analysis cast doubt on the future of Atara Biotherapeutics Inc.’s phase II study of ATA-188 in treating non-active progressive multiple sclerosis (PMS), the newly released primary analysis didn’t change much.