Glaucoma therapy spinout Quethera will become a unit of drug manufacturer Astellas Pharma, providing exits to investors Cambridge Enterprise, UCEF III and UK2IS.

University of Saarland and HTW Saar – University of Applied Sciences will run a three-month accelerator with funding from the Saarland government-backed Squash initiative.

Novo led a $60m series B round for achondroplasia drug developer Therachon that also featured Pfizer Ventures.

The oversubscribed round included Pfizer, Novartis, Merck Group and AbbVie, and boosted the cancer drug developer's overall funding to $120m.

Therachon has welcomed back Inserm Transfert Initiative for its series B round, led by Novo.

Existing shareholder IP Group has returned to back an $84m series B round for Artios, which also attracted corporates Pfizer, Novartis, AbbVie and Merck Group.

ICL spinout Cagen raised an undisclosed sum from Imperial Innovations and UKI2S to commercialise protein nanocages for shielding therapeutic payloads.

ING is supplying $24.5m in funding for cross-border payment platform TransferMate, nine months after a $35m investment by fellow bank AIB.