Simple schematic of an ADC. © ADC Therapeutics Sarl

Swiss cancer antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) developer ADC Therapeutics Sarl (Epalinges) has raised US$200m million through an oversubscribed private placement. Investors  include Auven Therapeutics, Redmile, the Wild Family Office and its development partner AstraZeneca.

John Brennan, Boris Mannhardt and MEP Frank Bogovi? in Brussels. Picture © BIOCOM

European Biotech Week:?Highlighting the benefits biotechnology has brought to pharma development, agriculture and – last but not least – the bio­economy, industry association Europa­Bio celebrated the European Biotech Week with an exhibition, Discovering European Biotech Innovation, in the European Parliament in Brussels.

© CureVac AG

mRNA cancer therapeutics specialist CureVac AG has baged US$50m upfront and is eglible to receive up to US$1.7bn in development milestones plus royalties for the development of five commercial cancer vaccines arising from a new R&D deal with Eli Lilly & Co. Lilly also made an equity investment of €45m. 

Ablynx headquarters, © Ablynx NV

Belgian Nanobody® producer Ablynx NV said it aims to raise US$175m of its ordinary shares in a global offering, comprised of a public offering of American Depositary Shares ("ADS") in the US and Canada and an offer of ordinary shares in other countries through a private placement. 

European ombudsman Emily O'Reilly. © European Ombudsman

A complaint against the EMA’s handling of  a referral procedure relating to potential side effects of Sanofi/MSD’s  HPV vaccine Gardasil and GSK’s HPV jab Cervarix promoted by the Nordic Cochrane Centre and physicians has been rejected by the European Ombudsman. 

Lung cancer cell dividing © National Cancer Institute

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has upgraded Roche’s Alecensa (Alectinib) from second-line to first-line treatment for patients with locally advanced of metastasing ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Berlin is no longer well-known only for its amazing cultural landscape and clubbing locations. Today, the German capital is one of the top three European tech start-up cities. This is a major attraction for investors, big pharma companies, and high-class researchers from all over the world who come to settle in the HealthCapital region Berlin-Brandenburg. During BIO-Europe in November, it offers the opportunity to dive into a fast-growing life sciences ecosystem. 

InflaRX lead candidate (blue) binding complement factor C% (red). © InflaRx

German infection specialist InflaRx (Jena) raised US$55m in a Series D financing co-led by Bain Capital Life Sciences LP, Cormorant Asset Management LLC and RA Capital Management LLC  to finance its clinical programmes with its lead asset IFX-1.

© Lipotype

Lipid analysis for early stages of drug discovery for Flagship VentureLabs with the aim to better understand molecular compositions of chondrisomes.

The TG01 cancer neoantigene vaccine primes the immune system to recognise cancer cells with RAS mutation. © Targovax SAS

Norwegian Targovax ASA (Oslo) has reported tremendous safety, immunogenicity, and one-year survival data, of in the modified cohort of the TG01 trial in resected pancreatic cancer patients.