Astellas inks agreement with Dyno Therapeutics for access to its CapsidMap platform for novel AAV vectors. Taiho takes option to Arcus TIGIT-targeted antibody candidates.

Since redundancies in Europe are expensive and politically sensitive, companies have tended, where possible, to find other ways of cutting costs. The prolonged biotech winter is leaving many European biotechs with few options besides layoffs, however.

Proteomics companies don't want to be seen as database providers, a low-valuation model once pursued by Celera and Incyte. So companies like Myriad Genetics and Oxford GlycoSciences have spun out their database businesses into JVs with IT partners, which provide cash and technology. Both partners benefit: biotechs get valued as budding drug developers and retain access to these tools, while IT companies get a foot in the door of the life sciences markets into which they wish to expand their products and services.

Spin-out activity at UCL Ventures was jump-started by the success of one company, SR Pharma, during the late nineties. The tech transfer office now takes advantage of London's status as a business and financial center to find and develop new entrepreneurs, and continues to benefit from UK government seed funds.