News

PanGenetics Bv has raised €23 million in a Series C financing from six institutional investors led by Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners.

Regulatory agencies in both the UK and Belgium have started to review applications from pharmaceutical companies for exploratory clinical trials which are designed to generate information on the safety in man of new compounds before the traditional Phase 1 studies begin, according to speakers at a meeting of the Drug Information Association in Barcelona, Spain on 5 March 2008.

Advanced therapy medicinal products will be evaluated by a new scientific committee at the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) starting January 2009, according to Patrick Celis, scientific administrator of the agency.

Cosmo Pharmaceuticals SpA, the Italian developer of gastro-intestinal (GI) drugs, said its revenue rose 44.5% in 2007 to €21.9 million, helping it to generate a net profit of €0.1 million compared with a loss of €0.3 million in 2006.

The European system for regulating medicines may need to be fundamentally altered in the future in order to cope with the expected rise in marketing authorization applications for advanced therapies as well as applications for generic medicines, according to a panel of experts.

The European Commission expects to issue the first call for proposals to do research under the new Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) in April 2008, with decisions on funding announced by the end of the year, according to Irene Norstedt, deputy head of the Commission’s biotechnology unit.

Pharming Group NV of the Netherlands said that it has negotiated an exclusive, global licence for certain patents in the field of transgenic technology from Advanced Cell Technology, Inc of the US.

Ablynx NV, the Belgian pharmaceutical company that derives therapeutic proteins from antibodies, said its revenues rose 150% in 2007 to €9.9 million from €3.9 million a year earlier. But the company’s loss narrowed only slightly to €12.5 million from €13.2 million.

Phytopharm Plc, which develops medicinal products from plants, is to raise £8.6 million through a placing and open offer of shares on the London Stock Exchange.

MorphoSys AG said that it expects revenue to grow to between €73 and €77 million this year from €62 million in 2007 on continued demand for antibodies from its proprietary Human Combinatorial Antibody Library (HuCAL). Operating profit is expected to be in a range of €9 to €11 million, compared with €7 million in 2007.