Merck & Co. Inc. is shelling out $1.3 billion in cash up front to acquire privately held Eyebiotech Ltd., gaining rights to the latter’s pivotal trial-ready diabetic macular edema drug and a pipeline of earlier-stage candidates targeting vision loss. An additional $1.7 billion could follow in development, regulatory and commercial milestones, raising the deal total to $3 billion.
Eyebiotech Ltd. doubled the size of its series A round, raising $130 million to advance a pair of assets, with a phase Ib/IIa trial dubbed Amarone underway testing the drug called Restoret in patients with diabetic macular edema and neovascular, or wet, age-related macular degeneration.
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.
