Research & Development

Vertex to acquire US biotech firm Semma Therapeutics for £785m

Vertex Pharmaceuticals has agreed to acquire US-based biotech company Semma Therapeutics for $950m (£784.66m) in an all-cash deal with an aim to develop curative cell-based treatments for type 1 diabetes.

HiFiBiO Therapeutics closes £55m Series C financing

HiFiBiO Therapeutics, a US biotherapeutics company, which has developed a single-cell analytics platform for extensive immune profiling, has completed a $67m (£54.86m) Series C financing round.

Immatics, Celgene sign £1.3bn deal to develop cancer immunotherapies

Immatics Biotechnologies and Celgene have signed a collaboration and option deal worth up to $1.59bn (£1.3bn) to develop novel adoptive cell therapies against multiple cancers.

OncoNano awarded £12.6m grant from Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas

OncoNano Medicine, Inc. today announced that it has been awarded $15.4m (£12.6m) from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) to advance ONM-500, one of OncoNano’s innovative oncology product candidates.

Zogenix to acquire Modis Therapeutics in £325m deal

Zogenix has agreed to acquire Modis Therapeutics, a California-based biopharma company focused on developing disease-modifying therapies for rare genetic diseases, in a cash-cum-stock deal worth over $400m (£325.72m).

ADC Therapeutics and Freenome enter biomarker development collaboration

ADC Therapeutics, an oncology drug discovery and development company that specializes in the development of antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), and Freenome, a biotechnology company that has pioneered the most comprehensive multiomics platform for early cancer detection through a routine blood draw, announced that they have entered a biomarker development collaboration in which ADC Therapeutics will use Freenome’s platform to identify patients who are most likely to respond to treatment with ADCT-402 (loncastuximab tesirine).

Cantargia, BioWa extend ongoing collaboration around POTELLIGENT technology

Cantargia and BioWa have signed an extension of the licence agreement around the BioWa proprietary POTELLIGENT technology for production of Cantargia’s antibody drug candidate CAN04, which gives Cantargia broader rights to use the technology.

Gilead, Galapagos finalise £4.1bn research and development deal

Gilead Sciences has finalised its 10-year global research and development deal, worth up to $5.05bn (£4.11bn), with Belgium-based Galapagos following regulatory clearances.

Finch raises £43m to advance microbiome-based therapies for recurrent CDI, Autism and other disease areas

Finch Therapeutics Group, Inc., a clinical-stage microbiome therapeutics company, announced today the completion of a $53m (£43.38m) Series C financing.