Despite known racial and ethnic differences in patient response to certain drugs, the incorporation of those factors into the construction and execution of global clinical trials remains as complex and controversial as ever. Read More
Though doubtless pleased with Nuedexta, Avanir Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s approved therapy for pseudobulbar affect (PBA), Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. may have been playing it safe with regard to chances in the lucrative Alzheimer's disease (AD) agitation market, offering $17 per share in cash, or $3.5 billion, in the buyout expected to close during the first quarter of next year. Read More
DUBLIN – Geneuro SA is getting $47 million in an up-front payment and research funding and could earn $408 million more in development and commercial milestones from a deal with Les Laboratoires Servier involving its first-in-class phase II multiple sclerosis (MS) antibody GNbAC1. Read More
Biogen Idec Inc. shares (NASDAQ:BIIB) rose a healthy 6.4 percent, or $19.83, to $328.27 Tuesday as investors swooned over news the company is aggressively advancing plans for a phase III study of its experimental Alzheimer's disease (AD) drug, BIIB037, also known as aducanumab. Read More
SHANGHAI – Lee's Pharmaceutical, of Hong Kong, has licensed from Ikaria Inc., of Hampton, N.J., the rights for Inomax, an inhaled nitric oxide that treats hypoxic respiratory failure (HRF) in newborns of 34 weeks gestational age. Read More
Efforts to plumb the human microbiome propelled yet another biotech to a fat financing. Seres Health Inc. closed a hefty series C, raising $48 million to advance its Ecobiotic therapeutics, designed to treat disease by restoring the function of a dysbiotic microbiome. Read More
Canbridge Life Sciences Inc., of Beijing, raised $10 million in a series A round from Qiming Venture Partners and TF Capital, a venture fund initiated by leading Chinese contract research organization Tigermed. Read More
Vaccinex Inc., of Rochester, N.Y., said it entered a research collaboration with Janssen Research & Development LLC, a unit of New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson, to develop novel cancer drugs. Read More
Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Inc., of New York, said phase II data of Auryxia (ferric citrate) in nondialysis-dependent chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients were published in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases. Read More
Astrazeneca plc, of London, said the FDA accepted for filing the new drug application for Iressa (gefitinib) as a targeted monotherapy for first-line advanced or metastatic epidermal growth factor receptor mutation-positive non-small-cell lung cancer, as identified through a companion diagnostic test. Read More