Good morning, all. Plenty of deal news to summarise for you this week. Here are the top headlines I found, covering news from diagnostics, peptides, gene therapy, protein degradation and more.
🔔 Agilent to acquire Biocare in $950M ‘complementary combination’
🔔 French AI biotech Owkin has spun out its diagnostics division as a new company, Waiv, raising $33 million in financing led by OTB Ventures and Alpha Intelligence Capital to scale AI-powered precision testing.
🔔 Amplifon to build vertical hearing aid player with €2.3B GN acquisition
🔔 Medtronic to drop $550M for Scientia Vascular and its stroke care portfolio
🔔 Unnatural Products Raises $45 Million Series B Financing to Advance Macrocyclic Peptide Therapeutics
🔔 San Francisco venture capital firm Breakout Ventures announced the close of a $114 million fund to support founder-led companies working at the nexus of science and artificial intelligence.
🔔 ARPA-H awards BioCurie $9.3m to support AI-driven gene therapy platform
🔔 Verigraft, a deeptech company based in Gothenburg, has announced a capital injection of SEK 110 million (approx. EUR 10 million) from an existing long-term shareholder.
🔔 A biotechnology spin-out company from The University of Manchester has closed a £3m seed funding round led by Northern Gritstone. Cytotrait focuses on the development of novel traits for food and agriculture.
🔔 French biotech Enodia Therapeutics is paying $1 million upfront in a backloaded deal for Kezar Life Sciences’ preclinical protein degradation program.
🔔 Salspera has set out plans for a $91 million IPO to fund the phase 3 study of its bacteria-based cancer therapy.
🔔 Italian pharma Alfasigma is handing $300 million to GSK for an itching treatment the FDA could approve in a couple of weeks.
🔔 BGF, the UK and Ireland’s most active growth capital investor, has led a multi‑million‑pound follow-on investment into South Wales‑based medical device company IQ Endoscopes, alongside the Development Bank of Wales
🔔 VALANX Biotech has raised €3 million in a Series A funding round to advance an ADC targeting LIV-1 for triple-negative breast cancer. The developments are currently still at the preclinical stage.
🔔 London-based Ternary Therapeutics has raised a €4.1 million seed round to expand its platform for designing molecular glue drugs, with Paris-based VC daphni leading the financing
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