From Berlin biotech NOXXON through a strategic realignment and considerations of cryptocurrency investments, and now back to drug development: TME Pharma has found a potential partner for its lead drug candidate NOX-A12 in Japanese biotech company TMS. For now, however, the companies are only entering exclusive negotiations. Whether these will actually lead to funded clinical development remains uncertain.
Swiss DARPin specialist Molecular Partners is shifting its entire focus to radiopharmaceuticals and plans to cut up to 55 jobs. According to the company, its cash reserves will last until the end of 2027. But behind the strategic overhaul lies an increasingly strained financial position. Its broad pipeline is likely to require much stricter prioritization.
Every Friday, The Leadership Edit follows people taking new roles across European biotech and what their moves may tell us about the companies they join. This week: two CEO transitions, three medical appointments and a finance hire at a young French biotech.
Spanish biotech ALLOX has closed a €9.4 million ($10.5 million) seed round, led by Asabys with participation from Spanish and Catalan public investors, to expand its experimental biology and AI platform for targeting “difficult-to-drug” protein-protein interactions and gene-regulating transcription factors. The company has also appointed former Novo Holdings executive Morten Graugaard as independent chair of its board.
Portugal-based Exogenus Therapeutics will lead a five-year, €13 million Horizon Europe project to advance its osteoarthritis candidate EXO-101 into clinical testing.
Switzerland-based Idorsia has launched a new pivotal Phase 3 trial of lucerastat in Fabry disease, targeting kidney deposits after its first late-stage study failed to reduce nerve pain. The company also signed a development and commercialization agreement with Japan’s Nxera Pharma, which will help fund the program.
Switzerland-based Atlas Bio has emerged from stealth with $12.5 million in funding to develop AI simulations that predict drug responses, with the ambition of replacing parts of clinical development and animal testing.
Swiss pharma group Ferring Pharmaceuticals has agreed to acquire New York-based Gameto for up to $1.3825 billion (€1.24 billion), gaining a cell-based approach designed to shorten the hormone treatment needed for in vitro fertilization (IVF) and egg freezing.
Beyond the main headlines, European biotech kept moving this week. This edition of Meanwhile in Biotech covers an Alzheimer’s program dropped from Novartis’ pipeline, a Swiss biotech’s Nasdaq ambitions, a hepatitis B approval and new directions in RNA medicines and neuroscience.
The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress is one of the biggest events on the cancer research calendar, where clinical results can reshape treatment decisions and drug developers’ prospects. This year, Immatics presented new data for its PRAME-targeting therapies, BioNTech expanded the evidence for its bispecific antibody pumitamig, and AstraZeneca reported survival gains across several cancers. Here’s our roundup of the most important announcements from European biopharma.