LONDON – U.K. bioscience is due for a huge injection of cash after the technology commercialization arm of the Medical Research Council, Lifearc, sold off a portion of its future royalty stream to Merck & Co. Inc.'s Keytruda (pembrolizumab) for $1.297 billion. Read More
Reneo Pharmaceuticals Inc., a company developing a PPAR delta agonist to treat genetically defined rare mitochondrial diseases, has completed a $50 million series A financing that it said will help support ongoing phase Ib trials of candidate REN-001, as well as other clinical and preclinical studies. Read More
DUBLIN – Quell Therapeutics Ltd., a new startup founded by the London-based biotech investment firm Syncona Ltd., has secured £35 million (US$44.5 million) in series A funding to progress the development of novel therapies based on engineering regulatory T cells (Tregs) to treat autoimmune disease and prevent organ transplant rejection. Read More
LONDON – Longas Technology Pty Ltd. has unveiled new DNA sequencing technology it claims can convert industry standard short read sequencers into virtual long read machines, increasing accuracy in resolving genomic repeats that occur in multiple locations and reducing the cost of assembling a complete genome. Read More
"This is just a tiny seed round," Detlev Mennerich, of Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF), conceded, telling BioWorld however that backers of Rinri Therapeutics Ltd. "have a clear vision" how the firm can use its newly banked £1.4 million (US$1.7 million) to develop chemistry, manufacturing and controls before going back to the market in a year or so for "north of $10 million" in series A money and then taking aim at phase Ib/IIa work. Read More
It's up to a judge, not a jury, to decide preemption questions such as whether the FDA would have rejected a proposed label change, the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday in a 9-0 decision in Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Albrecht. Read More
U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued its final rule to modernize and improve the Medicare Advantage and Part D programs, but it reversed a proposal that would have allowed exceptions to the six protected classes of drugs under Part D. Read More
Can-Fite Biopharma Ltd., of Petach Tikva, Israel, said it entered a definitive agreement with certain institutional investors to receive gross proceeds of $6 million. The firm will issue 1.5 million American depositary shares (ADS) at $4 per ADS in a registered direct offering. Read More
T3d Therapeutics Inc., of Research Triangle Park, N.C., which is developing T3D-959, an orally administered treatment for Alzheimer's disease (AD), received a grant expected to total $9 million over four years from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the NIH, to help fund a phase II study with the compound, described as a metabolic-focused AD drug treatment. Read More
