The US Food and Drug Administration has awarded $2.9 million to support six research projects aimed at helping with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of tuberculosis. The awards were issued under the agency’s Critical Path Initiative.
To the oldest corporate venture groups such as the Novartis Venture Fund, the idea of sitting alongside conventional venture capitalists to organise funding for a young research-intensive company is nothing new. Novartis has been doing it for more than 14 years and now has dedicated teams in Basel, Switzerland and Cambridge Massachusetts to vet life science assets, as well as a three-year old options fund to invest in some very early stage companies.
Novartis International AG said it is stopping work on albinterferon alfa-2b for hepatitis C and Mycograb (efungumab) for fungal infections in order to focus on more promising products. It will take a charge of $590 million in the third quarter.
A new UK pharmaceutical company, Convergence Pharmaceuticals Ltd, has raised £22.4 million in a Series A round in connection with its launch as spin-out of GlaxoSmithKline Plc. The company has a portfolio of analgesic medicines.
After failing to reach an agreement with Genzyme Corp’s management, Sanofi-Aventis has launched a public tender for all of the outstanding shares of the US biotechnology company that values the concern at $18.5 billion.
The European Medicines Agency is considering revisions to its guideline on the evaluation of new anti-cancer agents in response to a growing number of new therapies, including vaccines and immunotherapies, that have entered clinical trials.
The US Food and Drug Administration has issued a final rule that clarifies what safety information must be reported by the developers of new investigational drugs and biologics during the clinical trials of these products.
Agennix AG of Germany has raised €76 million in a rights issue in order to support the Phase 3 development of its lead product for non-small cell lung cancer, talactoferrin, and other programmes.
H. Lundbeck A/S has changed its approach for researching new medicines by focusing on three areas of biology, rather than specific CNS indications. These areas are neurodegeneration, neuroinflammation and synaptic transmission.
Bavarian Nordic A/S has reorganised its vaccine business into two divisions and consolidated its management in order to deliver on two near-term targets: secure new US orders for its smallpox vaccine and advance its prostate cancer vaccine to Phase 3.