The biopharmaceutical sector limped through August as its equities were hit by a sharp pullback until the very last trading day of the month, with the BioWorld Biopharmaceutical index recording a 4 percent jump to turn what was heading to be a negative period into a 2.2 percent increase in valuation. Up until Thursday, despite a stream of positive industry news, investors had been on the sidelines, perhaps remaining cautious about the prevailing uncertain broader market environment, which also kept the Nasdaq and Dow treading water. Read More
After months of speculation about Gilead Sciences Inc.'s need to accelerate its business development activities to augment its antiviral products portfolio, it finally pulled the trigger on a major acquisition last week. The proposed $11.9 billion acquisition of Kite Pharma Inc., a leader in chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) and engineered T-cell receptor development (TCR), will vault the company into the white-hot immuno-oncology (I-O) space. Read More