Tag: licensing
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RNA Therapies Developer Spins-Off Rare Disease Venture
12 May 2015. Moderna Therapeutics, a developer of RNA-based treatments, is starting a new company to design therapies with its technology to address rare diseases. Financial details of the spin-off company Elpidera LLC, the third such venture launched by Moderna, were not disclosed. Moderna, a biotechnology enterprise in Cambridge, Massachusetts, develops medications that use genetic…
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Plant Science Biotech Gets Genome Editing Technology
16 April 2015. Cellectis Plant Sciences, a biotechnology company in Minnesota developing higher quality crops through genetic engineering, licensed CRISPR genome editing technology from University of Minnesota. Financial details of the agreement between Cellectis and the university were not disclosed. The technology licensed by Cellectis covers techniques known as CRISPR, short for clustered, regularly interspaced short…
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Aduro Biotech Raises $108 million in IPO
15 April 2015. Aduro Biotech Inc., a developer of immunotherapies to treat cancer, issued its initial public stock offering today that expects to net the company some $108 million, after issuing 7 million shares priced at $17.00. The Berkeley, California enterprise trades on the Nasdaq exchange under symbol ADRO. As of the Nasdaq closing bell…
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Gene Therapy Biotech Raises $60M in Venture Funds
13 April 2015. Voyager Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing gene therapies for central nervous system disorders, raised $60 million in its second venture financing round. Financing for the 1 year-old enterprise in Cambridge, Massachusetts was led by new investors Brookside Capital and Partner Fund Management, with participation by Wellington Management Company and Casdin Capital, also…
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Janssen Licensing DNA Technology for Hep B Vaccine
13 April 2015. Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a division of Johnson & Johnson, is licensing an electronic DNA drug delivery technology from Ichor Medical Systems for vaccines to treat hepatitis B. Ichor, based in San Diego, expects to gain as much as $85 million in the deal. Hepatitis B is a liver infection caused by a virus…
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Purdue Spin-Off Designing Customized Synthetic Tissue
8 April 2015. A one year-old company, based on research at a Purdue University biomedical engineering lab, is producing customized biomaterials designed to form into synthetic tissue for drug discovery and toxicity testing. GeniPhys, founded by Purdue biomedical engineering professor Sherry Harbin, aims to further develop the technology, licensed from the university, into engineered tissue…
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Bristol-Myers Squibb Licensing Gene Therapies in $2.3B Deal
6 April 2015. Drug maker Bristol-Myers Squibb is licensing gene therapies from biotechnology company uniQure N.V. in a deal with a total potential value of $2.3 billion, including an equity stake in uniQure. The agreement gives Bristol-Myers Squibb exclusive access to as many as 10 disease programs being developed by uniQure, including a treatment for…
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Astellas Getting First Access to Leukemia Antibody
3 April 2015. MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston is granting Astellas Pharma Inc. in Tokyo an option to license MD Anderson’s discovery of a synthetic antibody showing promise as a treatment for acute myeloid leukemia. For the licensing option, MD Anderson could earn up to $26 million in fees and research funding. Acute myeloid…
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Novartis, Aduro Biotech Partner on Cancer Immunotherapy
30 March 2015. The pharmaceutical company Novartis is licensing cancer immunotherapy technology from Aduro Biotech in Berkeley, California. The collaboration could earn Aduro as much as $750 million, including an equity stake, for access to its work on cyclic dinucleotides, still in preclinical study, but considered promising as a cancer treatment. Cyclic dinucleotides are naturally…
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Stem Cell Biotech Gains $44M in First Venture Round
24 March 2015. A biotechnology start-up developing a stem-cell technology to replace missing beta cells that produce insulin for patients with type 1 diabetes, secured $44 million in its first venture funding round. Funding for Semma Therapeutics in Cambridge, Massachusetts was led by MPM Capital, with participation by Fidelity Biosciences, ARCH Venture Partners, and Medtronic.…