Higher US revenue kept Roche on an even keel in 2015 with a 1% rise in group sales to CHF 48.1 billion (€43.4 billion) and a 2% decline in operating profit. With pharmaceuticals accounting for three-quarters of group sales and nearly half of these sales coming from the US – the performance of the US market continued to be pivotal.
Galapagos NV has stopped clinical development of a candidate drug for ulcerative colitis (UC), a form of inflammatory bowel disease, because it failed to show efficacy in a Phase 2a study. The compound targets the G-coupled protein receptor 84 (GPR84).
Novartis announced significant changes to its operating structure, and new leadership for its Alcon eye division on 27 January as its financial results for 2015 showed declines in both operating and net income.
Two scientists from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Australia have reported that targeting a signalling protein called HheX stopped the progression of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) in mice.
Inivata Ltd, which is developing a blood test for detecting cancer from circulating tumour DNA, has raised £31.5 million in a Series A funding round supported by the investment group Imperial Innovations Group Plc.
A new £40 million fund that will help bring promising UK academic research into commercial development has been set up by AstraZeneca Plc, GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Johnson & Johnson Inc and universities in London and Cambridge.
Vasopharm GmbH, a privately held German company focused on cerebrovascular diseases, has raised €20 million from venture capital companies to finance Phase 3 development of its lead product for traumatic brain injury VAS203.
Abingworth LLP, the London-based investment group, has created a new fund to invest in late-stage life science assets that are being developed by two of its portfolio companies under contract with the pharmaceutical industry.
Netherlands-based Mucosis BV has secured a £2.77 million award from the Wellcome Trust to take an experimental vaccine against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) into the clinic. RSV is a virus that causes lung and airway infections in infants and young children.
The neuroscience sector took a further step towards consolidation on 19 January with an agreed bid by Acorda Therapeutics Inc for Finland’s Biotie Therapies Oyj which has a late-stage compound for Parkinson’s disease in the clinic and royalty revenue from a product for alcohol dependence. The deal is valued at about $363 million.