Company News

 Immutrin Ltd has raised £65 million to advance its lead antibody therapy to treat ATTR cardiomyopathy, a serious form of amyloidosis. The oversubscribed Series A financing was led by new investor Frazier Life Sciences with participation from F-Prime, Qiming Venture Partners, SR One and the biotech company’s founding investors Cambridge Innovation Capital and Cambridge Enterprise Ventures, UK. Amyloidosis is caused by misfolded proteins that aggregate into amyloid fibrils and accumulate in tissues and organs, leading to irreversible organ damage. 

Merck & Co Inc is to expand its oncology portfolio with the acquisition of Terns Pharmaceuticals Inc of Foster City, California, US. Announced on 25 March, the deal will give Merck an early-clinical stage small molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor, TERN-701, for the treatment of chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML). The target is an abnormal fusion gene which drives the growth of cancer cells in both CML and some types of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

The Belgian biotech Galapagos NV has announced a new strategy focused on the development of potential chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells for the treatment of autoimmune diseases. If executed, the strategy would involve recalibrating a long-term relationship with Gilead Sciences Inc with whom it has been working since 2015. In separate statements on 23 March, Gilead announced the acquisition of the privately-held US biotech company Ouro Medicines Inc, and Galapagos said it is in discussions with Gilead to share the cost of developing the target company’s lead asset.

Abivax SA reported cash and cash equivalents of €530.4 million on 31 December 2025 giving the France-based biotech company sufficient funds to finance its operating expenses into the fourth quarter of 2027. This follows a successful public share offering in July that raised a net $700.3 million for the company on the back of unexpectedly robust results for two Phase 3 trials of its lead product obefazimod. Obefazimod is being studied in ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, both subsets of inflammatory bowel disease.

A German company developing cell therapies to treat autoimmune diseases has been accepted into the European Medicines Agency’s support scheme PRIME, a regulatory pathway for small and medium-sized enterprises developing drugs for serious medical needs. The Heidelberg-based company, TolerogenixX GmbH, has received PRIME designation for its lead cell therapy candidate MIC-Lx for the treatment of immuno-suppression in live donor kidney transplantation.

Novartis is to pay $2 billion upfront and up to $1 billion in milestone payments for a US company with a therapy that has shown early, significant impact in treating breast cancer. The therapy, SNV4818, is a small molecule drug which entered clinical development in February 2025. It is currently being evaluated in a Phase 1/2 clinical study in patients with breast cancer and other solid tumours. The breast cancer indication was highlighted by Novartis in an announcement on 20 March because of the prevalence of cancers caused by mutations in the PIK3CA gene. 

R1 Therapeutics Inc of California, US, has made its market debut with $77.5 million in venture finance and an exclusive global license to develop and commercialise a new product for a disorder caused by chronic kidney disease. Announced on 17 March, the financing was co-led by Abingworth LLP of the UK, F-Prime Capital of Cambridge, US, and the US DaVita Venture Group.

Evotec SE expects to reduce its workforce by up to 800 people and close down more business sites in its drive to regain momentum following a two-year slowdown in the market for drug discovery and preclinical development. The Germany-based company is one of Europe’s larger biotech service and drug development organisations with a global presence in manufacturing. It is a Nasdaq-listed company which had a market capitalisation of €969 million on 31 December 2025.

Immunic Inc, a US-based biotech with a research arm in Germany, announced the awarding of a key patent by the European Patent Office on 10 March, strengthening its position ahead of the anticipated commercialisation of its lead product vidofludimus calcium (IMU-838) for multiple sclerosis. Vidofludimus is currently in Phase 3 with top line data expected at the end of 2026. If the data are positive, a regulatory review would follow.

Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci, co-founders of BioNTech SE, developer of the first vaccine to prevent Covid-19, are to embark on a new venture focused on exploring the therapeutic potential of messenger RNA. They will leave BioNTech, founded in 2008, in order to work on foundational science. For its part, BioNTech will concentrate on advancing a late clinical-stage pipeline of cancer therapies, “For us, this is the right time to prepare to hand over the baton,” said Dr Sahin in a statement issued on 10 March. “At the same time, Öziem and I are ready to become pioneers once again.”