Welsh biotech Draig Therapeutics has raised an oversubscribed $65 million Series B to accelerate its neuropsychiatry pipeline, taking its total funding to $205 million little more than a year after emerging from stealth.
Spanish investment holding company CriteriaCaixa plans to invest €300m in early-stage biotechnology and technology companies by 2030 through its two specialist venture funds.
Targeted protein degradation (TPD) has moved from a highly experimental concept to one of the most closely watched modalities in biopharma. What began with first-generation PROTACs (proteolysis-targeting chimeras) has evolved into a broader “induced proximity” field that now includes molecular glue degraders, degrader-antibody conjugates (DACs), lysosome-targeting chimeras (LYTACs), RNA degraders and other proximity-based therapeutics.
Swedish biotech PharmNovo has raised about SEK39m (€3.5m) to help finance a phase 2 study of PN6047, its experimental treatment for neuropathic pain.
French biotech AB Science is discontinuing three masitinib trials as it concentrates its clinical resources on an ALS phase 3 programme and the early-stage development of AB8939 in acute myeloid leukaemia.
Roche has discontinued two Huntington’s disease programmes after its Ionis-partnered drug tominersen failed to improve patients’ symptoms and a separate candidate raised concerns in animal studies.
AstraZeneca and Ionis have suffered a major late-stage setback after Wainua/Wainzua (eplontersen) failed to hit the primary endpoint in a phase 3 trial in transthyretin-mediated amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM), denting hopes that the RNA-targeted therapy could compete in one of cardiology’s fastest-growing rare disease markets.
GSK has pulled out of its neuroscience collaboration with Alector, ending a 2021 alliance that began with a $700m upfront payment but has since been hit by two clinical setbacks.
Cambridge-based Alchemab Therapeutics has added £25m (€29m) to its Series A financing, taking the round to £109m (€128m) and giving the UK biotech fresh capital to advance its AI-enabled antibody pipeline.
AstraZeneca has moved to strengthen its respiratory pipeline with a late-stage Chinese COPD asset, striking a deal that gives it a lower-cost shot at a market MSD recently entered through its $10bn Verona Pharma acquisition.