Addex Pharmaceuticals and a subsidiary of Merck & Co have agreed to extend for a third year their collaboration on developing positive allosteric modulators (PAMs) for a receptor linked with Parkinson’s disease.
Bavarian Nordic A/S has announced plans to raise DKK 250 to 300 million (€34 to 40 million) in a rights issue in order to support its biodefence and cancer programmes. The issue is expected to be completed at the beginning of 2010.
Biomedical Diagnostics, a French in vitro diagnostics company that produces products to detect auto-immune diseases, has raised €3 million in a private share placement led by Truffle Capital and AGF Private Equity.
The Michael J. Fox Foundation has awarded $1.5 million to six international research teams which are working on potentially disease-modifying therapies for Parkinson’s disease. The programme is financially supported by Elan Corporation Plc.
The ReNeuron Group Plc expects to start its long-awaited human trial of a stem cell therapy for stroke in the first quarter of 2010, provided it obtains formal ethics committee approval.
GW Pharmaceuticals Plc, which is developing a range of new cannabinoid medicines, expects European regulators to give a decision in the first half of 2010 on its application to market a drug to treat spasticity due to multiple sclerosis.
NicOx SA of France has launched a rights issue of approximately €70 million following the successful completion of a €30 million private placement. An NDA for the company’s lead drug has been filed with the Food and Drug Administration.
Clavis Pharma ASA of Norway has reached an agreement to partner its candidate drug for pancreatic cancer with a start-up oncology company in the US in a deal valued at up to $380 million. The partner is Clovis Oncology Inc of Colorado.
The European Medicines Agency has given a positive opinion to a new fertility treatment developed by NV Organon of the Netherlands, now part of Merck & Co, that can be used as part of an assisted reproductive technology programme.
Oxagen Ltd, a privately held UK company researching treatments for inflammation and allergies, has obtained a £16 million, Series C financing from a syndicate led by Novartis Venture Funds.