News

The Court of First Instance of Brussels has granted interim measures in a case brought by the European Commission and the 27 EU member states against AstraZeneca Plc, giving deadlines for the delivery of specific quantities of the company’s Covid-19 vaccine to the EU. The Commission brought the lawsuit, claiming that AstraZeneca had not made its “best reasonable effort” to deliver supplies covered by an advance purchase agreement entered into by the parties in 2020.

After interim data failed to meet the statistical criteria for success, CureVac NV is pressing ahead to complete development of its first Covid-19 vaccine while making plans to start studies of a second generation compound later this year. On 16 June, CureVac announced that its messenger RNA vaccine, CVnCoV, demonstrated an interim efficacy rate of 47% in a Phase 2b/3 trial. The outcome was weaker than expected.

A combination antibody treatment for Covid-19 has met its primary endpoint of improving  survival in patients hospitalised with the disease, the developer Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc announced on 16 June. The treatment, REGEN-COV, is a combination of the monoclonal antibodies casirivimab and imdevimab, which are both investigational compounds. The US Food and Drug Administration has given the combination treatment an emergency use authorisation.

Stratatech Corp, a unit of Dublin, Ireland-based Mallinckrodt Plc, has received regulatory approval in the US for its treatment for thermal burns. The treatment, StrataGraft, is produced from two types of human skin cells, keratinocytes and dermal fibroblasts, which have been grown together to make a cellularised scaffold. It is a topical treatment, to be placed onto the burn by a healthcare provider.

Flagship Pioneering, a US venture capital company founded by Noubar Afeyan, an Armenian-American entrepreneur, has closed its newest fund at $3.4 billion. Fund VII was reopened in April to current limited partners and new investors, and has now raised an additional $2.23 billion. This will enable the company to consolidate its work in company creation and development under one investment vehicle.

GlaxoSmithKline Plc has entered a new oncology pact in order to complete a group of assets that target receptors transmitting signals to immune cells. The collaboration is with iTeos Therapeutics of Belgium which was founded in 2011 to explore the tumour microenvironment and immunosuppressive pathways that affect cancer.

A new gene therapy company based in the Netherlands has raised €31 million in seed financing to advance a preclinical portfolio of potential treatments for muscular and neurodegenerative disorders. VectorY Therapeutics BV was launched in October 2020 to develop vectorised antibodies using an adeno-associated virus vector platform and antibody-based targeted degradation technologies.

Novo Holdings A/S, an investor in life science companies, has expanded its portfolio with the purchase on 15 June of a majority stake in BBI Group, a supplier of products and services to the global life science and diagnostics industries. The deal is valued at more than £400 million. Novo is buying the company from Exponent Private Equity LLP.

A Belgian start-up company with technology for targeting misfolded proteins closed a €18.3 million Series A financing round in early June. Amyl Therapeutics BV has a preclinical portfolio of therapeutics intended to treat amyloidosis, a group of diseases associated with the build-up of the abnormal amyloid protein in organs of the body. The targets of the company’s research are progressive peripheral and neurodegenerative rare diseases. The company did not identify the diseases by name.

The Swedish biotech Modus Therapeutics Holding AB has entered into a partnership with a team at Imperial College London, UK to investigate the compound sevuparin in patients with severe malaria. Modus is currently developing sevuparin for sepsis and septic shock, life-threatening conditions caused by the body’s reaction to an infection. The company has now extended its research to do more work in malaria.