Plus, news about ONL Therapeutics, Cidara Therapeutics, Emergent BioSolutions, Vico Therapeutics and Centessa:
Valneva gets €61.2M private placement: Valneva said the funds will go toward supporting ongoing Phase 3 and Phase 4 studies of its chikungunya vaccine and commercialization of that shot. It will also use the money to help fund planned Phase 2 trials for its Shigella and Zika vaccine candidates.
Immuneering’s small Phase 2a dataset: The company said two of five first-line pancreatic cancer patients responded to its experimental drug, called IMM-1-104, which is designed to inhibit the MAPK pathway and “achieve universal-RAS activity.” One patient had a complete response and another had an unconfirmed partial response. Its stock $IMRX was up about 55% on Friday morning.
ONL Therapeutics closes $65M Series D: Johnson & Johnson Innovation led the round. The funds will be used to advance the company’s ONL1204 program, a small molecule Fas inhibitor that aims to protect retinal cells across different eye diseases like macula-off retinal detachment and geographic atrophy.
Cidara Therapeutics restructures, lays off 30% of workforce: The biotech took the measures after J&J returned a flu drug earlier this year. Cidara raised $240 million in a PIPE financing in conjunction with the move in April. The reprioritization, announced Thursday, will see the company solely focus on the flu drug, called CD388, and seek partners for its oncology pipeline. Cidara had 69 employees as of April.
Emergent BioSolutions gets BARDA award for Ebola, settles case: The company will get $41.9 million to scale up its commercial efforts for Ebanga, its Ebola drug. Separately, Emergent said Friday it had agreed to pay $40 million — mostly from its insurance — to settle a class action lawsuit brought in 2021. Emergent’s shares $EBS were up about 6% on Friday morning.
Vico Therapeutics presents interim Phase 1/2a Huntington’s data: The private Dutch biotech said six patients saw a 28% decrease, on average, in CSF mutant huntingtin protein after 12 weeks. There was also no effect on neurofilament light chain. Vico raised a $60 million Series B in January.
Centessa Pharmaceuticals upsized its offering to $225 million from $150 million.