The ven­ture in­vestors at Medicxi are fund­ing a pair of biotech spin­outs from UK-based So­sei Hep­tares, which has been fine tun­ing its ex­per­tise in G pro­tein-cou­pled re­cep­tors for a num­ber of years now.

Francesco De Ru­ber­tis

Medicxi is of­fer­ing €40 mil­lion to kick­start two new com­pa­nies — the twins Orex­ia and In­ex­ia, which will tar­get Orex­in OX1 and OX2 for neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­eases. The Hep­tares sub­sidiary will put its re­searchers to work on the two projects, iden­ti­fy­ing nar­colep­sy as one key dis­ease on the menu.

Orex­ins are well known tar­gets in the biotech world. These neu­ropep­tides are in­volved in the reg­u­la­tion of sleep, wake­ful­ness and ap­petite.

Mal­colm Weir

Medicxi part­ner Francesco De Ru­ber­tis will sit on the board to watch over the firm’s in­vest­ment. Both of these groups have deep roots in the UK, with So­sei look­ing to build up the Hep­tares op­er­a­tion un­der Mal­colm Weir.

The VC’s cash should be enough to get through proof-of-con­cept stud­ies, fit­ting neat­ly in Medicxi’s as­set-cen­tric fo­cus, which of­ten fo­cus­es the mon­ey on ear­ly-stage re­search pro­grams stripped of as much over­head as they can.

Ireland has been on a roll in 2022, with several large pharma companies announcing multimillion-euro projects. Now AstraZeneca’s rare disease outfit Alexion is looking to get in on the action.

Alexion on Friday announced a €65 million ($68.8 million) investment in new and enhanced capabilities across two sites in the country, including at College Park in the Dublin suburb of Blanchardstown and the Monksland Industrial Park in the central Irish town of Athlone, according to the Industrial Development Agency of Ireland.

Amidst recently broader vaccine manufacturing initiatives from the EU and European companies, the G7 summit in the mountains of Bavaria has brought about some positive news for closing vaccine and medical product manufacturing gaps around the globe.

According to a statement from the White House, the G7 leaders have formally launched the partnership for global infrastructure, PGII. The effort will aim to mobilize hundreds of billions of dollars to deliver infrastructure projects in several sectors including the medical and pharmaceutical manufacturing space.

Another biotech standing on shaky financial legs has fallen victim to the bears.

Merck partner 4D Pharma has reported that a key lender, Oxford Finance, shoved the UK company into administration after calling in a $14 million loan they couldn’t immediately make good on. Trading in their stock was halted with a market cap that had fallen to a mere £30 million.

“Despite the very difficult prevailing market conditions,” 4D reported on Friday, the biotech had been making progress on finding some new financing and turned to Oxford with an alternative late on Thursday and then again Friday morning.

Some Celgene shareholders aren’t happy with how Bristol Myers Squibb’s takeover went down.

On Friday, a New York federal judge ruled that they have a case against the pharma giant, denying a request to dismiss allegations that it purposely slow-rolled Breyanzi’s approval to avoid paying out $6.4 billion in contingent value rights (CVR).

When Bristol Myers put down $74 billion to scoop up Celgene back in 2019, liso-cel — the CAR-T lymphoma treatment now marketed as Breyanzi — was supposedly one of the centerpieces of the deal. After going back and forth on negotiations for about six months, BMS put $6.4 billion into a CVR agreement that required an FDA approval for Zeposia, Breyanzi and Abecma, each by an established date.