News Archive

Epic Games has created a $5 million fund to provide financial grants to developers who are creating games and other innovative projects.

Above: Tim Sweeney Image Credit: Dean Takahashi In doing so, Epic is joining a number of game-platform owners who are courting developers with actual cash to help them create games that run on that platform. From a business view, it pays to invest in their own platforms. In this case, Epic Games is competing with rivals such as Unity for the hearts and minds of developers. And when it comes to creating a game that shows off a platform, cash is now king.

Many cancer patients and their families are happy to never look back once they’re safely on the other side of treatment, in remission or cured. But for David Austin and his wife, Emily, whose 6-year-old son now has a clean bill of health, winning the cancer battle was just the first step on another journey to help other cancer patients, particularly those whose treatment involves central lines — catheters placed directly into a vein in the chest to administer chemotherapy or take blood for frequent tests.

It was easy to get my head around the biotech buzz and the digital health marketing blitz that happened last month at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference.

But here’s the question I heard most often (and gave me the most food for thought): “Can I meet more angels?”

The venture boom that funneled billions of dollars into life sciences companies last year included a big surge in first-time deals, according to a fresh analysis of the numbers for 2014. And the boom in venture investing looks set to continue well into 2015, according to the analysts at PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association, working with data provided by Thomson Reuters to put out the MoneyTree report.

Roche and Qualcomm have entered into a new collaboration to improve remote monitoring and management of chronic disease patients. 

The new deal between the Swiss cancer drug firm and the communication technology specialist will see Roche use Qualcomm Life’s 2net Platform to capture data from a patient’s medical devices, beginning with anticoagulation metres, and transmit it to Roche’s cloud-based services.

Pharma Major Lupin Limited (Lupin) and Celon Pharma S.A. (Celon) announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which the companies will jointly develop a fluticasone/salmeterol dry powder inhaler (DPI) product which is a generic version of GlaxoSmithKline’s Advair Diskus. Lupin will be responsible for commercialization of the product. Celon will supply the product to Lupin for its commercialization in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and other key markets. GlaxoSmithKline’s Advair Diskus® had global sales of over USD 7 billion as of last fiscal.  

Moving to advance its leadership in developing vaccines for important public health and biodefense needs, Vaxin Inc. today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Immune Targeting Systems (ITS) Ltd. Vaxin is a clinical stage vaccine development company headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland. ITS develops novel T-cell vaccines at its operations in the United Kingdom and France. The deal is an all-stock transaction and is subject to customary closing conditions. The combined company will be known as Vaxin Inc.

Crystal City-based Disruption Corp. is partnering with Maryland-based Greenspring Associates, a $3 billion fund of funds that backs some venture capital firms that actively invest in the region, including New Enterprise Associates, Revolution Growth and True Ventures.

Ashton Newhall, co-founder of Greenspring Associates, told me he believes Disruption and Greenspring are “philosophically aligned” on the possibilities of using data analytics to make sounder investments in startups and the private market broadly.

Enterprise Therapeutics Ltd, a drug discovery company focused on new therapeutics for respiratory diseases, today announced that it has secured £1.6m ($2.4m) in initial Series-A financing from Epidarex Capital. The proceeds will fund, in parallel, low molecular weight drug discovery and new target identification programs. The company will be based at the University of Sussex.