> Cocoon Networks Ventures, the Chinese investor that is targeting British biotechs with a £500 million ($720 million) fund, outlined its reasons for aiming its considerable financial clout at the United Kingdom. At an event attended by Bloomberg, CEO John Zai said the decision was motivated by the disparity in valuations between young companies in the U.K. and China. Zai estimates valuations in the U.K. are a third of those seen in China, a situation that is attributed to lots of money in the latter chasing relatively few opportunities. Bloomberg
> Celyad ($CYAD) killed its plan to set up a manufacturing facility at a building in Rochester, MN, the Post-Bulletin reports. Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium-based Celyad hatched plans to take over a floor at the Minnesota BioBusiness Center last year, leading to its partner the Mayo Clinic moving staff out of the space. Celyad signed a lease at a rate of more than $22,000 a month in May, only to learn that remodeling the building would cost more than expected. Celyad now calculates it would cost less to set up the plant elsewhere, even though it would receive financial support in Rochester. Article
> Nuevolution (OMX:NUE) set its sights on striking up to two risk-sharing collaborations and the same number of outlicensing agreements over the coming year. The Copenhagen, Denmark-based firm, which is partnered with Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ), Merck ($MRK) and Novartis ($NVS), is looking to strike the deals to build on the momentum generated by the IPO it pulled off late last year. At a turbulent time for biotech IPOs, Nuevolution was able to upsize its offering, resulting in it raising SEK 250 million ($29.5 million). Report (PDF)
> Actelion (VTX:ATLN) CEO Jean-Paul Clozel reiterated his belief that competition for assets will make it challenging to stock the pipeline through acquisitions. "They are ready to pay much higher prices," Clozel told Reuters. "So I am quite pessimistic that we can compete with these companies." Clozel is interested in striking deals to expand beyond pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), an indication in which he currently sees little room to improve, but may have to rely on internal R&D. Actelion plans to spend around CHF 400 million ($407 million) on R&D this year. Reuters | FierceBiotech
> Ferring Pharmaceuticals met with Indian politicians to discuss the investment of $250 million (€222 million) in a R&D facility, LiveMint reports. Frederik Paulsen, chairman of Switzerland-based Ferring, reportedly met with a leading official in the Telangana government to talk about the planned facility in Hyderabad. Ferring is reportedly considering making the site a R&D hub, as well as a production center. LiveMint
> The U.S. FDA granted breakthrough therapy status to Adaptimmune's ($ADAP) T-cell therapy targeting NY-ESO in synovial sarcoma. Adaptimmune picked up the designation on the strength of data from a Phase I/II trial, in which the target dose of the treatment elicited responses in more than half of the small study population, patients with unresectable, metastatic or recurrent synovial sarcoma who had received prior chemotherapy. Release