Mabvax Therapeutics Holdings Inc., of San Diego, said it closed its securities purchase agreements with investors providing for the registered sale of approximately $1.31 million of shares of series J convertible preferred stock, representing approximately 2,386.36 shares at a purchase price of $550 per share. Read More
Alliance Foundation Trials LLC, of Boston, New York-based Pfizer Inc., and six international cancer research groups have launched Patina, a randomized, open-label, phase III study of the cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 inhibitor Ibrance (palbociclib). Read More
Wave Life Sciences Ltd., of Cambridge Mass., said an article describing how to produce antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) therapeutics with high stereochemical purity was published in Nature Biotechnology. Read More
The U.S. SEC reported Monday that hedge fund adviser Deerfield Management Co. LP agreed to pay more than $4.6 million to settle charges that it failed to establish and enforce policies to reduce the risk that employees would misuse inside information, including confidential government decisions affecting drug and medical device companies. Read More
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Plantpraxis – a melding of Axis Biotech Brasil, of Rio de Janeiro, and Canadian biotech Plantform Corp. – is on track to dent the costs of expensive biologic treatments in developing countries, according to Axis CEO Eduardo Cruz. Read More
By studying both postmortem brains of depressed humans and animal models of stress-induced depression, researchers have discovered that the gene expression patterns associated with depression are very different in males and females. Read More
HYDERABAD, India – India’s drug authority has granted approval to Mylan Inc.’s Indian arm to market its anti-tuberculosis drug delamanid developed specifically for treating multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB). Meanwhile, the country is also actively exploring new entities to tackle the TB problem via public-private partnership. Read More
Celularity Inc. raised “roughly in the $50 million range” by way of its series A round to boost cell and tissue regenerative therapies in cancer and other disorders, said Sorrento Therapeutics Inc. CEO Henry Ji, whose company is one of three involved in what amounts to a new business model. “Basically, the whole cell-therapy division of Celgene is coming back together into Celularity” as the end result, he told BioWorld. Read More
A phase III trial testing Astellas Pharma Inc.’s acute myeloid leukemia (AML) candidate, gilteritinib, as a maintenance therapy after hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HCT) has dosed its first patient. It’s the fourth late-stage trial testing the FLT3/Axl kinase inhibitor in an active landscape of increasingly tailored AML therapies. If successful, the study could help the company establish a basis for a potentially broad label for the orphan-designated medicine. Read More