News

A private equity group with offices in London and Guernsey is providing £5 million over three years to a UK company pursuing a new concept in biologic development.

A monoclonal antibody developed by Genmab A/S of Denmark and GlaxoSmithKline has won a positive opinion from the European Medicines Agency for the treatment of leukaemia, conditional upon the companies’ providing updates on the drug’s use.

A patient in the US has become the first person with the neurodegenerative disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), to be treated with stem cells. The cells were directly injected into the spinal cord of the patient on 20 January 2010.

Oral formulations of two investigational drugs for multiple sclerosis have been shown to be effective in reducing the rate of disease relapse, according to three papers in the New England Journal of Medicine. The drugs are oral fingolimod and oral cladribine.

Ipsen SA of France is combining its holdings of potential haemophilia drugs with those of Inspiration Biopharmaceuticals Inc of California, US to create a franchise that Ipsen hopes will exceed $1 billion by 2020.

Evotec AG has reinforced its position in drug discovery with a new agreement to identify potential treatments for Huntington’s disease. The agreement comes at a time when the Germany-based company is narrowing its strategic focus after setbacks more than a year ago with two clinical-stage products

GlaxoSmithKline is to make 13,500 potential malaria compounds freely available to researchers from around the world in a bid to stimulate work on medicines for the developing world. It is also allocating $8 million to a new research foundation.

The privately-held Danish diagnostics company, Dako Denmark A/S, has signed a deal with AstraZeneca to develop companion diagnostic tests for a number of AstraZeneca’s oncology projects. Financial details were not disclosed.

Galápagos NV has reached its first milestones in a research alliance with an affiliate of Merck & Co ahead of schedule triggering payments of €3.6 million. Together with upfront fees of €4 million, total payments to the Belgian company are €7.6 million.

A novel licensing deal among two German universities and the UK Medical Research Council’s commercialization arm is expected to lead to the development of a potential new therapy for rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis.