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In Brief This Week: Scottish Funding Council, Novacyt, Danaher, Luminex, More

NEW YORK – The Scottish Funding Council said this week that a country-wide precision medicine initiative in Scotland has received up to £9.5 million ($12.3 million) in new funding. The funding includes £7.5 million from the council and up to £2 million from Scottish Enterprise, and will support the growth of precision medicine in Scotland managed by the Precision Medicine Scotland Innovation Centre (formerly the Stratified Medicine Scotland Innovation Centre). The newly launched phase 2 of the center will continue to act as a catalyst for partnerships between industry, academia, and clinical entities. In phase 1 the Innovation Centre produced several large-scale projects in areas including ovarian cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, esophageal cancer, and multiple sclerosis. The center said it expects to be able to attract around £4.2 million in income from other sources.


French diagnostics firm Novacyt said this week that private hedge fund YA II CD has notified the firm of an exercise to subscribe for 300,000 new ordinary shares at €0.946 ($1.29) per share for a total subscription of €283,000.

Separately, the firm said it issued a total of almost 6.4 million new ordinary shares pursuant to the exercise of warrants. About 6 million new ordinary shares were issued to Harbert European Growth Capital Fund at €0.0698 per share for a total subscription of €420,000. About 353,000 new ordinary shares were also issued to Kreos Capital V at €1.45 per share for a total subscription of €512,627.

Since Jan. 31, Novacyt said it has received subscriptions totalling more than €2.9 million, adding that it no longer has any outstanding warrants or options over ordinary shares in issue.

Additionally, the firm will make a net payment of €158,000 to Negma to satisfy the terms of a guarantee related to the cancellation of 1.3 million warrants held by Negma. The guarantee was invoked by Negma on Feb. 4.


Danaher this week announced a regular quarterly cash dividend of $.18 per share of its common stock, payable on April 24 to shareholders of record on March 27. The company’s board of directors also approved a quarterly cash dividend of $11.785 per share of its 4.75 percent Series A Mandatory Convertible Preferred Stock, payable on April 15 to shareholders of record on March 31.


Luminex this week declared a first quarter cash dividend of $.09 per sharepayable on April 9 to stockholders of record as of the close of business on March 19.


Bruker said this week that its board has approved a quarterly cash dividend of $.04 per share, payable on March 20 to shareholders of record as of March 9.


Abbott's board this week declared a quarterly common dividend of $.36 per share, payable on May 15 to shareholders of record at the close of business on April 15.


In Brief This Week is a selection of news items that may be of interest to our readers but had not previously appeared on GenomeWeb. 

 

The Scan

Positive Framing of Genetic Studies Can Spark Mistrust Among Underrepresented Groups

Researchers in Human Genetics and Genomics Advances report that how researchers describe genomic studies may alienate potential participants.

Small Study of Gene Editing to Treat Sickle Cell Disease

In a Novartis-sponsored study in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that a CRISPR-Cas9-based treatment targeting promoters of genes encoding fetal hemoglobin could reduce disease symptoms.

Gut Microbiome Changes Appear in Infants Before They Develop Eczema, Study Finds

Researchers report in mSystems that infants experienced an enrichment in Clostridium sensu stricto 1 and Finegoldia and a depletion of Bacteroides before developing eczema.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment Specificity Enhanced With Stem Cell Editing

A study in Nature suggests epitope editing in donor stem cells prior to bone marrow transplants can stave off toxicity when targeting acute myeloid leukemia with immunotherapy.