Following the resignation of erstwhile CEO Jim Van heusden, Karolinska Development has promoted Viktor Drvota to the position of head of the company. Drvota held the position of Chief Investment Officer before.

Synthetic promoter and gene expression specialist Synpromics has completed a £5.2m (€6.2m) financing round with existing investors. 

AIM-listed drug discovery company e-Therapeutics plc has a new head. In early April, Raymond Barlow took over as Chief Executive Officer. 

Autoimmune specialist Galapagos NV (Mechelen, Belgium) has priced its 3,750,000 American Depository Shares (ADSs) in an follow-on offering led by Morgan Stanley at $90 per ADS. 

In December 2016, US biotech company Ionis Pharmaceuticals’ drug Spinraza received regulatory approval in the US. No doubt: the antisense technology behind Spinraza could be the next big thing

Irish Allergan and Swiss Novartis have agreed to start a proof-of-concept study of a combination of their NASH candidates cenicriviroc (Allergan) and FXR agonist LJN452 (Novartis).

Domainex has a new Executive Chairman: Timo Veromaa has been appointed to the Board of the British drug discovery services company.

sphingotec GmbH and bestbion dx GmbH have signed an agreement to market sphingotec’s innovative sepsis and congestive heart failure test (sphingotest bio-ADM) and acute kidney function monitoring assay (sphingotest penKid) in Germany and Austria.

German and Swedish researchers have presented a strategy to predict and improve chemotherapy outcomes in patients with acute myelogenous leukaemia (AML). Currently, the five-year overall survival rate of AML patients treated with cytarabine (ara-C) standard chemotherapy ranges from 20-70%. 

Following its CHF1.901bn IPO at SIX Swiss Exchange on 7 April, Galenica Santé has announced full excercise of the over-allotment option worth CHF248m.