UK pharma group acquires Belgium’s EsoBiotec as it announces EU has approved Imfinzi lung cancer drug

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AstraZeneca has struck a $1bn (£773m) deal to buy a Belgian biotech company that specialises in cancer immunotherapies, the latest in a string of acquisitions that also yielded positive results for a late-stage rare disease drug on Monday.

EsoBiotec, a small privately held firm founded four years ago in Mont-Saint-Guibert, develops in-vivo cell therapies that empower the immune system to attack cancers, and could offer many more patients access to cell therapy treatments provided in minutes rather than weeks.