STRASBOURG, France – With about €1.3 billion under management, Sofinnova Partners is one of the biggest – and most active – players in European VC. It is also about to add to that number. "We're in the process of closing our eighth fund," Sara Nunez Garcia, senior associate at Paris-based Sofinnova, told delegates during a panel on the differing approaches to risk assessment that VCs take in North America, Europe and Asia. It will, like its predecessors, be in the €250 million to €300 million range. Read More
A group of top-tier investors came together in a $53 million series B round for 2014 start-up ORIC Pharmaceuticals Inc., a company whose goal can be summed up neatly in its acronym: overcoming resistance in cancer. Read More
Kite Pharma Inc. is kicking off its ZUMA-3 study, the third in what's soon to be a quartet of pivotal studies aimed at supporting regulatory approval of KTE-C19, its anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy and lead candidate. Read More
Zafgen Inc. apparently learned that waiting only delays the inevitable after its earlier two-day silence following a patient death in its phase III study, bestPWS, evaluating beloranib, a twice-weekly subcutaneously administered drug targeting the methionine aminopeptidase 2a (MetAP2) pathway, in Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS). Read More
SHANGHAI – Ascletis Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd. – China's answer to Gilead Sciences Inc. with its own curative HCV treatments in the clinic here – has just received its second tranche of financial backing in almost as many months, but this time around the funds are coming from investment bank, Goldman Sachs. Read More
HONG KONG — Australian researchers led by the University of New South Wales (UNSW) have discovered the mechanism whereby synaptic connections between brain cells are destroyed in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD), a key finding that clears the way for new research on urgently needed treatments for the currently incurable degenerative brain disease. Read More
Theravance Inc., of South San Francisco, said its modified Dutch auction tender offer resulted in the valid tender of approximately 2.6 million common shares, including approximately 197,000 common shares that were tendered through notice of guaranteed delivery. Theravance expects to purchase shares that were validly tendered and not withdrawn at $9.25 apiece, or approximately $23.9 million. Read More
Stem Cell Medicine Ltd. (SCM), of Jerusalem, Ramot at Tel Aviv University Ltd., and Yeda Research and Development Co. Ltd. (YEDA), have entered into a license and research funding agreement. SCM will fund stem cell-based treatments for neuronal disease research at Tel Aviv University in cooperation with the Weizmann Institute of Science. Read More
