Research & Development

Ipsen to buy rare-disease drug maker Clementia in $1.3bn deal

French pharma company Ipsen has agreed to acquire Canada-based Clementia Pharmaceuticals in an all-cash deal worth up to $1.3bn to boost its rare disease portfolio.

Urovant Sciences signs $100m debt financing deal with Hercules Capital

Urovant Sciences, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing innovative therapies for urologic conditions, announced it has entered into a debt financing agreement with Hercules Capital for up to $100m.

AbbVie, Voyager sign $1.5bn gene therapy deal

AbbVie and Voyager Therapeutics will engage in the development of vectorized antibodies to treat Parkinson's disease and other synucleinopathies, under a deal worth over $1.5bn.

Morphic Therapeutic enters into integrin research and development collaboration with Janssen

Morphic Therapeutic, a biotechnology company developing oral integrin therapies, has entered into a research and development collaboration with Janssen Biotech, to discover and develop novel integrin therapeutics for patients with conditions not adequately addressed by current therapies.

Merck to buy late-stage immunotherapy firm Immune Design for $300m

Merck has signed an agreement to acquire late-stage immunotherapy firm, Immune Design, in a deal valued at around $300m.

Peloton Therapeutics secures $150m in Series E financing

Peloton Therapeutics, a drug discovery and development company advancing oral medicines for cancer and other serious conditions, has announced the closing of an oversubscribed $150 million Series E financing.

Knight Therapeutics signs Latin American funding deal with Moksha8

Knight Therapeutics, a Canadian specialty pharmaceutical company focused on acquiring, in-licensing, selling and marketing innovative prescription pharmaceutical products and Moksha8, a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on licensing and marketing innovative and established therapeutics in Latin America, announced the closing of a strategic financing agreement for up to $125m.

Decipher announces research collaboration with Dendreon to identify genomic drivers of patient response to Sipuleucel-T

Decipher Biosciences (formerly GenomeDx) has announced a research collaboration with Dendreon Pharmaceuticals, a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company and pioneer in the development of immunotherapy, to apply genomic tumor profiling using the Decipher assay and GRID software to identify prostate cancer patients on active surveillance who may benefit most from treatment with sipuleucel-T.

Artificial intelligence can predict survival of ovarian cancer patients

Researchers have created new machine learning software that can forecast the survival rates and response to treatments of patients with ovarian cancer.