Swiss biotech ADC Therapeutics has secured an $86.6 million (€77.5 million) financing agreement alongside debt and royalty deal amendments that extend its expected cash runway into 2029 and remove a potential obstacle to a takeover.
Zealand Pharma shares fell about 4% in Thursday trading after new Phase 2 results for its Roche-partnered obesity drug petrelintide showed encouraging weight loss but a modest improvement in blood sugar control. It’s the second positive trial readout that has failed to reassure investors in the course of a week.
Roche has partnered with China’s Defand Therapeutics to discover molecular glue degraders for cancer and immune diseases, in a research and licensing agreement reportedly worth close to $1 billion (€895 million).
Argenx is stopping its Phase 3 UNITY trial of efgartigimod in Sjögren’s disease after an interim analysis showed the study could not meet its primary endpoint. Shares fell about 18% in Euronext Brussels trading following the announcement, overshadowing positive Phase 2 results for its recently acquired celiac disease drug FB102.
Paris-based Rivercell has raised $25 million (about €22 million) in seed funding to generate experimental data and build AI models that predict how human cells respond to drugs and genetic changes.
Exclusive European data from BIO-Europe’s inaugural C-suite survey, shared with European Biotechnology, shows a sector expecting better funding conditions while struggling with investor caution. Among 69 executives at European-headquartered companies, 84% identify investor risk aversion as biotech investment’s biggest constraint, even as 70% expect their company’s access to capital to improve over the next year.
Dutch life sciences investor Forbion has raised €2.3 billion across two new funds to finance about 30 biotech companies, setting a fundraising record for the firm.
Oxford-based Sensible Biotechnologies has secured a $47 million (€42 million) financing package to scale a platform that makes mRNA in living cells, targeting manufacturing costs and unwanted immune activation that can limit its use in treatments beyond vaccines.
Dutch biotech RougeTx has launched with a $58 million (€52 million) series A to take its lead drug RTX-001 toward first-in-human testing in hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT). The round was co-led by BioGeneration Ventures, Angelini Ventures and Kurma Partners, with the European Investment Bank (EIB) participating through Angelini’s Aurea co-investment vehicle.
Genmab and AbbVie’s bispecific antibody epcoritamab, added to R-CHOP chemoimmunotherapy, cut the risk of progression or death by 51% in a Phase 3 trial in newly diagnosed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL).