TORON­TO — Three years af­ter a dis­ap­point­ing clin­i­cal fail­ure cast doubts on Roche’s fu­ture in Alzheimer’s dis­ease, the com­pa­ny is go­ing all in on a se­quel pro­gram. And ear­ly da­ta sug­gest it might be the most po­tent amy­loid-clear­ing drug yet.

In a packed room at the Alzheimer’s As­so­ci­a­tion In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence in Toron­to on Sun­day, Roche re­vealed the lat­est cut of da­ta from its close­ly-watched Phase 1/2 study of tron­tinemab, an amy­loid-tar­get­ing an­ti­body de­signed to latch on­to re­cep­tors that yank it across the pro­tec­tive blood-brain bar­ri­er.

Un­like its failed pre­de­ces­sor gan­tenerum­ab, which on­ly slow­ly and mod­est­ly re­duced amy­loid plaques over two years, tron­tinemab prac­ti­cal­ly elim­i­nat­ed amy­loid in just sev­en months. One pa­tient died from a brain he­m­or­rhage ear­ly in their treat­ment, caus­ing Roche to tight­en its cri­te­ria last year to ex­clude par­tic­i­pants who are sus­cep­ti­ble to the fa­tal side ef­fect.

Adap­ti­m­mune is sell­ing three cell ther­a­py as­sets, in­clud­ing its sar­co­ma ther­a­py Tecel­ra, to US WorldMeds for $55 mil­lion in cash af­ter an­nounc­ing plans ear­li­er this year to fur­ther cut costs and seek “strate­gic op­tions.”

The com­pa­ny al­so dis­closed Mon­day morn­ing that it is lay­ing off 62% of its work­force, and sev­er­al ex­ec­u­tives are leav­ing.

Adap­ti­m­mune’s stock ADAP fell about 65% Mon­day morn­ing when mar­kets opened. De­spite win­ning FDA ap­proval for Tecel­ra in Au­gust, the com­pa­ny’s shares have dropped 90% over the last 12 months.

“Giv­en the fi­nan­cial sit­u­a­tion of the com­pa­ny, it is clear that se­cur­ing the right strate­gic op­tion was crit­i­cal to max­i­mize val­ue for all of our stake­hold­ers and im­por­tant­ly en­sure our pa­tients con­tin­ue to re­ceive Tecel­ra,” Adap­ti­m­mune CEO Adri­an Raw­cliffe said in a state­ment.

A Cal­i­for­nia biotech work­ing in a hot but risky area of schiz­o­phre­nia and Alzheimer's drug de­vel­op­ment has se­cured the third-largest pri­vate fund­ing round of 2025 so far.

Map­Light Ther­a­peu­tics said Mon­day morn­ing it cor­ralled $372.5 mil­lion in a Se­ries D raise from For­bion, Gold­man Sachs Al­ter­na­tives' life sci­ences team, Sanofi, No­vo Hold­ings and oth­ers. Sanofi pre­vi­ous­ly bought an­oth­er Alzheimer's biotech, Vig­il Neu­ro­science, for $470 mil­lion.

Map­Light is in Phase 2 test­ing in schiz­o­phre­nia and Alzheimer's dis­ease psy­chosis with a can­di­date co­de­named ML-007C-MA. The ex­per­i­men­tal oral med­i­cine is a fixed-dosed com­bi­na­tion of an M1/M4 mus­carinic ag­o­nist that is co-for­mu­lat­ed with a pe­riph­er­al­ly act­ing an­ti­cholin­er­gic to tamp down on "pe­riph­er­al cholin­er­gic side ef­fects," the com­pa­ny said.

Bavar­i­an Nordic could forge an ap­prox­i­mate­ly $3 bil­lion buy­out in the com­ing weeks as pri­vate eq­ui­ty firms cir­cling the com­pa­ny have come for­ward on po­ten­tial deal terms.

Large in­vest­ment firms Nordic Cap­i­tal and Per­mi­ra have set up a pri­vate com­pa­ny called In­nosera, with the goal of mak­ing an all-cash takeover of­fer for the Dan­ish vac­cine mak­er with­in four weeks, ac­cord­ing to a Mon­day re­lease.

The firms plan to of­fer 233 Dan­ish kro­ne ($36.4) per share, which is a 21% pre­mi­um to the Copen­hagen-based com­pa­ny's clos­ing price on Ju­ly 23, when mar­ket ru­mors be­gan cir­cu­lat­ing about a po­ten­tial buy­out. Bavar­i­an Nordic con­firmed the deal dis­cus­sions short­ly af­ter.

The of­fer fol­lows "in­tense ne­go&sh