In QuotedData’s morning briefing 13 May 2021:
- Barings Emerging EMEA Opportunities (BEMO) has announced that Maria Szczesna, one of its investment managers, and a member of the Barings EMEA Team, has decided to step down from her portfolio management responsibilities to return to her home country for family reasons. Maria will remain with BEMO until July 2022 and the trust’s board says that it does not anticipate any portfolio management disruption, with the remaining co-portfolio managers, Matthias Siller and Adnan El-Araby, who have a combined experience of 36 years, continuing to share responsibilities.
- Syncona (SYNC) has highlighted that its portfolio company, Autolus Therapeutics Plc has announced that new data highlighting progress across its broader portfolio will be presented at the European Hematology Association (EHA) Congress, held between 9-12 June 2022. SYNC has provided the following key highlights:
- Positive early safety and efficacy data from AUTO4 in T cell lymphoma (TCL), with AUTO 4 demonstrating a tolerable safety profile. 5 out of the 9 patients achieved complete metabolic responses (CMR) one month post treatment, including all 3 patients treated at the highest dose level.
- Promising early safety and efficacy data in the AUTO1/22 programme in paediatric acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (pALL), with 5 out of 8 evaluable patients remaining in minimal residual disease (MRD) negative complete response (CR) at a median follow up of 4.8 months post treatment.
- Early safety and efficacy data in AUTO1 (obe-cel) in relapsed/refractory primary central nervous system lymphoma (PCNSL) from 6 patients.
- Early safety and efficacy findings in obe-cel in relapsed/refractory B cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (B-NHL), and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL)/small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL), in 19 patients in total, with obe-cel showing a tolerable safety profile despite high disease burden amongst patients, along with excellent CR rates.
- Molten Ventures (GROW) has announced that its portfolio company Aiven (a Finland-based software company combining open-source technologies with cloud infrastructure) has closed an externally led Series D funding round that has raised US$210m. This gives Aviena pre-money valuation of US$3bn, which GROW says is a significant uplift on earlier rounds. GROW’s interest in Aiven is held through the Earlybird partnership. Aiven aims to use the new funding to continue its international expansion, double its employee base, develop new platform capabilities and launch a global sustainability program. GROW says that an uplift in Aiven’s valuation was anticipated in the trading update released on 28 April 2022 which highlighted an expected NAV per share of not less than 929p. GROW says that the carrying value of its holding in Aiven will be finalised as part of the ongoing year-end process and it expects to release its final results on 13 June 2022.