Valneva Reels in €84m in Fresh Financing to Shore up Vaccine Pipeline
Valneva SE completed a €84 million ($91 million) reserved equity offering, bolstering its cash buffer as it approaches pivotal 2026 milestones. The proceeds will fund the Phase 3 Lyme disease vaccine VLA15, developed with Pfizer, and the shigellosis candidate S4V, while also shoring up commercial operations and the balance sheet. VLA15 recently missed its primary statistical endpoint but demonstrated roughly 73% efficacy, prompting Pfizer to still pursue regulatory submission. The financing, combined with a recent $500 million debt refinancing, extends Valneva’s runway through the critical decision points ahead.
Inside Servier’s New €200M Venture Fund
Servier has unveiled a new corporate venture fund, committing roughly $216 million to back early‑stage biotech focused on oncology and neurology. The fund, Servier Ventures, will target late pre‑clinical and Series A assets where it can add capital and industrial expertise, especially...
CureVac Takes Moderna to Court over mRNA Vaccine Patents
CureVac has filed a lawsuit against Moderna alleging infringement of its mRNA‑stabilisation and delivery patents that underpin Spikevax. The case, backed by BioNTech after its 2025 acquisition of CureVac, seeks a share of the multibillion‑dollar revenues from COVID‑19 mRNA vaccines....
Evonik: €80m for Biopharma CDMO Capacity in Slovakia
Evonik Industries is allocating roughly €80 million (about $87 million) to expand its fermentation plant in Slovenská Ľupča, Slovakia. The investment adds downstream capacity for pharmaceutical active ingredients and creates around 50 new jobs. The site, already a biotech hub producing spider‑silk protein...
Epitopea Wins UK Approval for Therapeutic Vaccine Trial
Epitopea secured UK regulator and ethics committee clearance to launch OVACT, a Phase I/Ib first‑in‑human trial of its RNA‑based vaccine CryptiVax‑1001 in advanced high‑grade serous ovarian cancer. The study will evaluate safety, tolerability, immunogenicity and early clinical activity in HRP⁺/BRCA‑wildtype...
Can Biotech Finally Fix Infertility?
Infertility affects one in six adults worldwide, yet current care relies heavily on IVF, which still yields modest pregnancy rates—33% per transfer for standard cycles and 51% for egg donation. Biotech firms are targeting the biological gaps that IVF bypasses,...
Roche’s Fenebrutinib Cuts Relapses in MS Amid Safety Concerns
Roche’s investigational BTK inhibitor fenebrutinib achieved 51.1% and 58.5% reductions in annualised relapse rates versus teriflunomide in the Phase III FENhance 1 and 2 trials for relapsing multiple sclerosis, while also cutting MRI lesion activity. The drug showed encouraging trends in disability‑progression measures...
UCB Spends US$1.15bn on Cell Therapy Biotech for Potential Regenerative Epilepsy Therapy
UCB announced a deal to acquire clinical‑stage biotech Neurona Therapeutics for up to $1.15 billion, securing the stem‑cell‑based candidate NRTX‑1001. The therapy, in Phase I/II trials, uses engineered pluripotent cells that release GABA to rebalance neural circuits in drug‑resistant mesial temporal...
Next Stage of Growth with a New CEO
Resyca BV, a Dutch specialist in soft‑mist inhalation drug delivery, has appointed Deborah Jones as its new chief executive. Jones brings over two decades of senior leadership experience, most recently overseeing business strategy for Proveris Scientific across EMEA and India....
Proteins.1 Launches with €4.7m to Make Protein Detection as Easy as PCR
Proteins.1, a Finnish spin‑off, announced a €4.7 million (~$5.1 million) pre‑seed round to commercialise a PCR‑style protein amplification platform. The enzyme‑free, solid‑state technology uses magnetic cycling and thin‑film transistors to read a single captured protein repeatedly, delivering up to 1,000× greater sensitivity...
Spain Plants US$200m Flag in Boston with Debut US Biotech Fund
Spain has unveiled a $200 million venture‑capital fund based in Boston, anchored by $57 million of public seed capital. The fund will back Spanish life‑science startups seeking to scale within the U.S. ecosystem and co‑invest in select American biotech firms. A new...
Can Europe Finance and Keep Its Biotech Winners?
The United States saw a surge of life‑sciences IPOs in early 2026, raising over $1 billion, while Europe continues to lose its biotech firms to foreign markets. Over the past six years, 66 of 67 EU biotech companies that went public...
Europe’s Distinct Biotech Venture Studio Model
Biotech venture studios are reshaping company formation by building startups internally, testing hypotheses and providing shared infrastructure before external financing. The model, popularized in the United States by Flagship Pioneering—which launched Moderna—offers a hub‑and‑spoke structure that concentrates expertise and capital...
Clean Food Group to Scale Yeast-Based Oils with £4.5m in the Bank
Clean Food Group raised £4.5 million (≈ $5.7 million) from Clean Growth Fund, New Agrarian and an additional £700,000 (≈ $0.9 million) grant from Innovate UK to fast‑track its yeast‑based oils facility in Knowsley, Liverpool. The £20 million (≈ $20 million) plant will shift from pilot to commercial‑scale production...
Basilea Lands US$6m CARB X Boost for Novel Antibiotic
Basilea Pharmaceutica secured a non‑dilutive $6 million grant from CARB‑X to fund the Phase I first‑in‑human trial of BAL2420, a novel Gram‑negative antibiotic targeting the LptA protein. The trial began dosing its inaugural subject in March 2026 after successful IND‑enabling work. Preclinical data...
SLAS Announces the Cohort for Innovation AveNEW at SLAS Europe 2026
SLAS announced the twelve startups selected for its Innovation Ave NEW program at the SLAS Europe 2026 conference in Vienna. The cohort, representing companies from seven countries, will showcase new laboratory‑automation and discovery technologies on a dedicated exhibition floor. SLAS will cover...
Jeito Capital Raises Record US$1.2bn to Bankroll European Biopharma’s Next Generation
Jeito Capital closed its second biopharma fund, Jeito II, at a record $1.2 bn (about €1 bn), making it the largest raise for an independent European biotech‑focused PE firm. The fund will back 15‑20 clinical‑stage companies, allocating roughly $162 m per position across obesity,...
Gilead Acquires German ADC Specialist Tubulis in US$5bn Deal
Gilead Sciences agreed to acquire German ADC specialist Tubulis for up to US$5 bn, including a US$3.15 bn cash upfront payment and up to US$1.85 bn in milestones. The deal brings Tubulis’s proprietary antibody‑drug conjugate platforms and two late‑stage assets—TUB‑040, a NaPi2b‑targeted topoisomerase‑I...
Portugal’s Biotech Industry Is Growing Up
Portugal’s biotech sector is shedding its niche reputation, with turnover among trade‑group members more than tripling between 2016 and 2020 and over half of firms earning the majority of revenue from exports. A multi‑node cluster model spanning Cantanhede, Porto, Braga,...
The Rollercoaster Ride Stopps and Danish IO Biotech Goes Bust
Copenhagen‑based IO Biotech, a cancer immunotherapy firm, saw its flagship melanoma vaccine Cylembio miss the primary endpoint in a Phase III trial, prompting the FDA to advise against filing for approval. The regulatory setback left the company with insufficient runway, as...
French AI: 20 Million Funding for Generare to Find Better Data in Nature
Generare, a Paris‑based tech‑bio startup, raised €20 million in Series A funding to expand its proprietary library of evolution‑derived small molecules. The company tackles the data bottleneck in AI‑driven drug discovery by decoding microbial genomes to uncover cryptic chemistry, having identified over...
Lilly Moves Deeper Into Sleep Medicine with up to $7.8 Billion Centessa Deal
Eli Lilly announced a definitive agreement to acquire UK‑based Centessa Pharmaceuticals for up to $7.8 billion, paying $38 per share in cash and up to $9 per share in contingent milestones. The acquisition gives Lilly control of Centessa’s orexin‑receptor‑2 agonist pipeline,...
Where Life Science Scales in Basel
The Basel region remains one of the world’s premier life‑science clusters, offering a dense network of pharma, biotech and research institutions. SONUVO in Allschwil adds approximately 35,000 m² of laboratory and office space to the Bachgraben district, expanding the region’s capacity...
Something of a Shopping Spree: Novartis to Acquire US-Based Excellergy for up to $2bn
Novartis announced a deal to acquire California‑based Excellergy for up to $2 bn, securing the Phase I antibody Exl‑111 that targets both free and cell‑bound IgE. The acquisition bolsters Novartis’ allergy pipeline, positioning the drug as a next‑generation complement to its existing...
Europe’s Pivotal Choice: Vaccination Is Health Security
Europe is positioning vaccination as a strategic asset, linking political will, science, and capital to secure health and economic resilience. The European Commission has pledged €225 million to fast‑track next‑generation flu vaccines, including the NOFLU consortium’s mRNA mucosal candidate. By integrating...
10 European Startups to Watch in 2026
A curated list of ten European biotech startups founded since 2021 showcases rapid progress toward clinical milestones and sizable financing. Companies such as Isomorphic Labs, Draig Therapeutics and Adcytherix are moving from platform development to first‑in‑human trials, backed by funding...