It has been a great quarter for public biotech companies as the sector continued to remain hot with investors. Large biotech companies, with market caps greater than $1 billion, collectively saw their share prices jump by an average of 21.5 percent in the first quarter. That performance almost doubled the Dow Jones Industrial average, which reached a new historical high last week and closed the quarter up 11.25 percent. The S&P500 also hit an all-time high thanks to its 10 percent increase in

According to data from Deloitte Recap LLC, there were 11 deals terminated in the first quarter of 2013, a number that is on pace to blow through the 30 terminated deals last year and the 31 terminations the year before. The trend could just be a function of the increase in the number of deals signed earlier. More initiated partnerships means more deals that can be potentially terminated. "We saw an increasing trend in the number of deals signed from 2000 to 2007, and again from 2010 to 2011

I. COMPLETED MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS Total Value in 2012: $55,123M Number of M&As in 2012: 69 Total Value in 2013: $2,145M Number of M&As in 2013: 18 Company Acquired (Location) Acquired By Or Merged With (Location) Date Reported Date Completed* Value (M)@ Terms/Details SEPTEMBER Allos Therapeutics Inc. (Westminster, Colo.) Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Henderson, Nev.) 4/6/12 9/6/12 $206 Spectrum acquired all outstanding shares of Allos for $1.82 per share in cash, plus one contingent value

Financings ARCA Biopharma Inc. filed for a public offering of $20 million in stock and warrants. Cell Therapeutics Inc. negotiated a $15 million term loan from Hercules Technology Growth Capital Inc. Enanta Pharmaceuticals Inc. closed its IPO, raising gross proceeds of about $64.4 million. Evolva Holding SA completed its capital raise for gross proceeds of $32.8 million. Neuralstem Inc. secured $8 million in debt financing with Hercules Technology Growth Capital Inc. Rockwell Medical Inc. closed

In the aftermath of a deadly meningitis outbreak linked to drugs from the New England Compounding Center and ongoing quality problems with other compounders, the FDA is working with lawmakers on legislation that would set stricter standards for compounding pharmacies and increase the agency's oversight. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) appeals board flipped a decision made earlier that favored Idenix Pharmaceuticals Inc. over Gilead Sciences Inc. in an interference dispute over

A recently released UK House of Lords Committee report revealed that it is very worried about aging and said that the government is woefully underprepared for a rapidly greying population. The report identifies how England will see a 50 percent rise in the number of those aged 65 and older, and a 100 percent increase in those aged 85 and older by the year 2030. In view of those statistics the committee said it believes urgent action is needed. "An aging society will greatly increase the number

Budget pressures are leading to more intense scrutiny of the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) return on investment from early stage research that contributes to the development of blockbuster drugs. In a recent letter to the NIH, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) noted that in 1995, the agency had abandoned a policy that required "a reasonable relationship between the pricing of a licensed product, the public investment in that product, and the health and safety needs of the public." More research is

Company (Location) University/ Nonprofit Type of Agreement Product Area Details Date DECEMBER Biogen Idec Inc. (Weston, Mass.) Several leading academic research centers Research consortium Created a research consortium in collaboration with several leading academic research centers aimed at leveraging a range of scientific techniques and disciplines to identify new approaches to treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis Each participating lab will undertake a three-year research project, and

Financings Alcobra Ltd. is planning to raise $15 million in its IPO. Cynapsus Therapeutics Inc. is offering units for aggregate proceeds of $5.9 million. Enanta Pharmaceuticals Inc. priced a $56 million IPO. GW Pharma plc has filed for a listing on Nasdaq, with the goal of raising up to $50 million. Rockwell Medical Inc. is selling 4.3 million common shares at $3 per share in a registered direct offering. Savara Pharmaceuticals Inc. closed a $7.4 million second tranche of a Series B financing

"I absolutely hate unblinding Phase III studies, but in this case I'm quite happy with the results." – Tim Ruane, CEO of InSite Vision Inc., discussing positive findings from the first Phase III trial of BromSite "It's a completely open door now, in mRNA technology. The speed, efficiency and lower cost of mRNA likely will now come to the attention of other pharma firms." – Ingmar Hoerr, CEO, CureVac GmbH, commenting on the AstraZeneca deal with Moderna "Where we landed I believe is a very good

The emergence of a potential pandemic has always been a favorite topic for Hollywood, which has given us some good films in the genre in recent years such as The Andromeda Strain, Outbreak and Contagion. While humans eventually defeat the virulent virus in these storylines, there is an implicit and underlying message in each movie – there is a very real threat that one day society will have to deal with a virus or drug-resistant bacterium that quickly evolves and spreads rapidly on a global

Emerging diseases are by their nature a disconcerting foe. As with any preventive measure, it's only possible to know for sure if a new infectious agent has gotten in under the radar when patients begin to present with unusual symptoms. Such was the case with HIV; by the time the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report described a cluster of five men with the opportunistic infection Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in 1981, there were likely already thousands of infected individuals in the U.S. It

Galena Biopharma Inc. has a bit of a wait ahead of it. The biotech initiated a Phase III trial testing NeuVax (nelipepimut-S) as an adjuvant breast cancer treatment at the beginning of 2012. The 700-patient PRESENT (Prevention of Recurrence in Early-Stage, Node-Positive Breast Cancer with Low to Intermediate HER2 Expression with NeuVax Treatment) trial is expected to complete enrollment by the end of the year. The trial, conducted under a special protocol assessment, will measure disease-free