France-based Truffle Capital has raised €250 million for a new life science fund that will invest in medical technologies using minimal intervention to treat major diseases such as heart disease. The closing of the BioMedTech fund was announced on 18 December. It is one of two new Truffle ventures, the second being a €140 million fund for banking and insurance innovation.
Three European biotech companies have received loans totalling €100 million from the European Investment Bank (EIB) enabling them to advance imaging and cell and gene therapy technologies, as well as individualised medicines for cancer. The EIB is the long-term lending institution of the European Union and owned by the EU member states. The three biotech companies are France-based Median Technologies SA, Italy-based MolMed SpA and Germany-based BioNTech SE.
The Roche group has acquired commercialisation rights, outside the US, for an experimental gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a rare degenerative neuromuscular disorder. The deal was announced on 23 December and is with Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. It comes only days after Roche received regulatory clearance to acquire the gene therapy company Spark Therapeutics Inc.
Genmab A/S has expanded its antibody repertoire under a new research and collaboration agreement with CureVac AG to produce antibody therapeutics for cancer that have been developed using messenger RNA (mRNA) technology. The agreement includes an upfront payment of $10 million for the first product and a €20 million equity investment in CureVac, as well as options on three other programmes. The deal was announced on 19 December 2019.
Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH has encountered a setback in its plans to develop multiple products for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). A small molecule drug in-licensed from Pharmaxis Ltd in Australia is being dropped from development because of the risk of drug interactions, the German company said on 18 December.
A large observational study of patients with atrial fibrillation treated with the cardiovascular drug Lixiana (edoxaban), has confirmed that the drug is noninferior to warfarin but generates fewer bleeding episodes, according to the developer, Daiichi Sankyo Co Ltd.
A combination therapy directed at patients with advanced non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer, failed to show a clinically meaningful overall response rate in a Phase 2 clinical trial, the developer Transgene SA announced on 12 December. Transgene has stopped further development of the compound TG4010, which is a cancer vaccine based on a modified Vaccinia virus.
The antibody-drug conjugate belantamab mafodotin has generated an overall response rate of 31% in a pivotal Phase 2 study of patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma, GlaxoSmithKline Plc announced on 17 December. The UK company has made a regulatory submission for the drug with the US Food and Drug Administration.
The EU is to invest €10 million in a project to expand the use of structural biology in drug discovery and other disciplines. The project is being coordinated by Anastassis Perrakis from the Netherlands Cancer Institute and the Oncode Institute and will involve partners from other countries.
Novartis is to discontinue development of the small molecule drug fevipiprant as a treatment for asthma following the failure of two Phase 3 studies to show a reduction in the rate of moderate-to-severe exacerbation compared with placebo. A pooled analysis of the LUSTER-1 and LUSTER-2 studies did not meet the clinical threshold of efficacy for either of the two doses of the drug over a period of 52 weeks.
“The totality of these results do not support further development of fevipiprant in asthma,” the company said in a statement on 16 December.