News

Ablynx NV, a Belgian developer of antibody fragments originating in llamas, has raised €74.2 million with a private placement of new shares.

Life Sciences Partners BV has closed its fifth fund, LSP 5, with a total investment of $280 million, comfortably higher than its initial target of $170 million. The fund will aim to invest in around 20 companies across the healthcare sector.

Novacyt SA, a listed French cellular diagnostics company, has raised €1.4 million from a private equity placement in order to help finance the expansion of its recently acquired UK company Primerdesign, which has technology for analysing bacteria and viruses.

Shire Plc completed its acquisition of Baxalta Inc on 3 June to create a global company focused on developing drugs for rare diseases and other specialised conditions. The $32 billion deal comprises payments in both cash and Shire equity.

Researchers at KU Leuven in Belgium have used cell cultures to show that a prospective antiretroviral medicine called LEDGIN has the potential to put HIV-1 into remission. The research will still need to be tested in mice before it can progress to humans.

Ryboquin Ltd, a virtual Scottish company with no salaried employees, has raised £1.3 million for the scaling up production of its lead product, Ryboquin ECP-102, which boosts the effectiveness of chemotherapy in cancer patients.

Nouscom SA, a new developer of cancer vaccines raised €12 million in a Series A financing round earlier this month to support the development of a portfolio of products based on oncolytic viruses and viral vectors. The company is based in Basel, Switzerland.

The European Medicines Agency has launched a review of guidelines for the testing of new medicines in volunteers following the death of one person and the hospitalisation of five others in France in January. The case is the most serious incident to come to light since 2006 when an experimental immunotherapy seriously injured six volunteers in a first-in-human study the UK.

The European Medicines Agency has given positive opinions to two new combination drugs to treat chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, both of which directly target proteins that cause the virus to replicate in humans.

AstraZeneca Plc has received a complete response letter (CRL) from the US Food and Drug Administration rejecting its application to market a new drug for hyperkalaemia called ZS-9. The CRL relates to an unspecified manufacturing issue.