NIHWith a first $50 million tranche of its Series B financing and a commercial partnership with MEDICE, HMNC Brain Health has secured fresh capital for its depression programmes. The deal marks an important milestone for the Munich-based company – nearly a decade after it first set out to transform psychiatry through precision medicine.
Finnish biotech Aplagon has raised €4.8m to broaden Phase II development of its lead candidate APAC, a first-in-class antiplatelet and anticoagulant therapy for thrombo-inflammatory diseases. The financing will support a new Phase II clinical programme in arteriovenous fistula (AVF) maturation failure in patients with end-stage kidney disease.
Kos Biotechnology Partners has raised US$123m (€106m) for its inaugural global life sciences fund, marking a notable step for Greece’s still young biotechnology financing ecosystem.
Sensorion has selected SENS-601, its gene therapy candidate for GJB2-related hearing loss, as its lead gene therapy program after filing clinical trial applications in France and Canada. The French biotech is discontinuing development of its OTOF-targeted therapy SENS-501, citing a changed competitive environment following the approval of Regeneron’s rival gene therapy.
Orionis and Novartis have expanded an existing deal to develop “molecular glue”, with a new agreement worth up to $1.4 billion, aiming to stick small molecule drugs onto challenging and elusive drug targets.
Veraxa Biotech, an oncology company spun out of research at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), has completed its merger with SPAC company Voyager Acquisition Corp. and will be trading as of today on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol VRXA. For the company, which has roots in the Heidelberg region, the move marks its transition from a research-driven company to a publicly listed biotech developer.
Scenic Biotech has joined the Michael J. Fox Foundation’s LRRK2 consortium to test a Parkinson’s disease approach that targets neither LRRK2 nor GCase directly.
Sanofi’s $11.6bn Bioverativ acquisition is back under scrutiny after riliprubart, a rare disease drug inherited through the deal, failed a phase 3 CIDP study. While Altuviiio has become a blockbuster, the latest setback raises fresh questions about whether the Bioverativ pipeline can justify its price tag.
Oslo-based Circio has completed a NOK300m (€27m) financing round, extending its runway to the end of 2030 and giving the company funds to advance its circVec circular RNA expression platform toward IND-enabling development and clinical proof-of-concept.
Swedish biotech AlzeCure Pharma entered a collaboration and licensing agreement with Eli Lilly, granting the biopharma giant global rights to its Alzheimer’s disease candidate Alzstatin (ACD680). Under the terms of the deal, Alzecure will receive $10 million upfront and could receive more than $1 billion in development and commercial milestone payments, in addition to tiered royalties on future sales.