Drug Discovery

Chinese biotech company Adagene raises $50m in new funding round

Adagene, an antibody discovery and development company, has raised $50m in Series C financing, led by Sequoia China, and backed by New World TMT, AVIC Trust, King Star Capital, Gopher Asset Management and other investors.

Redx Pharma signs option and licence deal for anti-infective program with Deinove

Deinove has signed a license option agreement with the British compan yRedx Pharma to acquire its anti-infective program, Novel Bacterial Topoisomerase Inhibitor (NBTI), which targets Gram-negative infections.

Regeneron, Alnylam partner to discover new treatments for NASH

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals have entered into collaboration to identify RNAi therapeutics for the chronic liver disease nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and potentially other related diseases.

Lundbeck to buy Prexton Therapeutics in EUR905m deal

Danish pharma company H. Lundbeck has agreed to acquire Switzerland-based Prexton Therapeutics, which develops drugs for Parkinson's disease and other brain disorders, in a deal worth about DKK6.75bn (€905m).

Zymeworks plans to take second drug into trials in HER2-expressing cancers

Zymeworks announced that ZW49 is the first product candidate selected for clinical development using the ZymeLink antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) platform, acquired as part of its 2016 purchase of Kairos Therapeutics.

Ionis licenses to Akcea global rights to inotersen in $1.7bn deal

Ionis Pharmaceuticals has licensed to Akcea Therapeutics worldwide rights to inotersen and AKCEA-TTR-LRx, formerly IONIS-TTR-LRx, in a transaction potentially worth about $1.7bn.

Kiadis raises €23.4m to develop immunotherapy for GVHD

Kiadis Pharma has raised €23.4m of funding in a private placement of 2.6 million new shares, for developing a T-cell immunotherapy product to reduce Graft versus Host Disease (GVHD) in hematopoietic stem cell transplantations (HSCT).

Biogen to acquire Pfizer’s schizophrenia drug for up to $590m

Biogen has agreed to buy Pfizer's investigational schizophrenia drug, PF-04958242, in a deal worth about $590m.

Covance establishes new global unit for biologic drug development

LabCorp's Covance Drug Development business has established a global immunology and immunotoxicology (I&I) unit to focus on the development of biologic drugs.