Successfully developing drugs is the ultimate goal of pharmaceutical companies, but the downside is that the pipeline requires constant replenishing. The early stage drought was made worse by the merger of large pharmaceutical companies; as the pipelines came together, the later-stage compound usually got priority when there was redundancy. Rather than restock the pipeline with only late-stage compounds, which can get expensive, large pharmaceutical companies have adopted different strategies to

Scientists at Harvard University have gained new insights into how sirtuins – enzymes that appear to have broad anti-aging effects – are affected by their activators. The work contradicts earlier claims that the activation of sirtuins through resveratrol was an artifact of the way those effects were studied when they were first discovered. At the time Sinclair and his colleagues first suggested that sirtuin activation might be responsible for the life-extending effects of caloric restriction

Biotech continues to be the hot sector with investors. With just two more weeks to go before the end of the first quarter the BioWorld Stock Report has recorded an average 18 percent share price increase year-to-date for the 233 public biotechnology companies, which the report tracks. The sector has kept pace with the general markets, which have been equally buoyant. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has increased 19 percent since the beginning of the year, the NASDAQ Composite index is up 25

Company (Location) Funding Institution Amount (US$M) Type Details Date OCTOBER Addex Therapeutics SA (Geneva) Swiss Commission for Technology and Innovation CHF0.7 ($0.748) Grant For development of allosteric modulators for neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases 10/3/12 Advanced Cancer Therapeutics Inc. (Louisville, Ky.) National Cancer Institute $0.158 Phase I SBIR grant To support the development of an inhibitor of glycolysis targeting 6-phosphofructo-2 kinase/fructose 2,6-biphosphatase 3

The U.S. patent system switches from first-to-invent patent claims to a globally accepted first-to-file system. The switch, mandated by the America Invents Act, officially occurred on Saturday. The FDA is revising a dispute resolution guidance, released in 2000, that laid out the steps sponsors should take to resolve scientific and procedural disputes at its drug center and the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. Comments on the revised draft guidance are due by June 11.

"It is very encouraging that the FDA is considering accelerating the marketing approval of Alzheimer's disease (AD) drugs. This is certainly good news for the pharmaceutical industry and biotechs that are active in AD drug development. If implemented, the new guidance also could lead to a resurgence of symptomatic AD drug discovery efforts aimed at improving cognition." – Dirk Beher, chief scientific officer of Asceneuron SA "This indication fits with Shire's proven protein replacement

Financings Cerus Corp. priced a public offering with gross proceeds expected to be about $35 million. Chimerix Inc. is seeking to raise $75 million from its IPO to advance its antiviral candidate. Hyperion Therapeutics Inc. completed its public offering and netted about $64.5 million. Idera Pharmaceuticals Inc. is planning to raise up to $40 million by selling common stock and warrants. Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. closed its $15.1 million offering of 27.4 million shares and warrants. Omthera

Company (Location) Product Description Indication Status Date CANCER Algeta ASA (Oslo, Norway) radium-223 Radium Ra 223 Dichloride Castration-resistant prostate cancer NDA was accepted for filing 2/14/13 Apogenix GmbH (Heidelberg, Germany) Apocept Drug designed to bind to the CD95 ligand and block activation of the CD95 receptor Myelodysplastic syndromes FDA granted orphan drug designation 2/8/13 Celgene Corp. (Summit, N.J.) Abraxane Paclitaxel protein-bound particles Non-small-cell lung cancer

Company (Location) Product Description Indication Status Date CANCER Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Tarrytown, N.Y.) and Sanofi SA (Paris) Zaltrap Ziv-aflibercept Metastatic colorectal cancer European Commission granted marketing authorization in the European Union 2/6/13 Seattle Genetics Inc. (Bothell, Wash.) Adcetris Brentuximab vedotin Hodgkin lymphoma and systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma Health Canada approved it for HL after failure of autologous stem cell transplant or failure of

Company (Location) Product Description Indication Status Date Baxter International Inc. (Deerfield, Ill.) FEIBA NF Anti-inhibitor coagulant complex Hemophilia A or B Submitted a BLA supplement to the FDA 2/27/13 Bayer HealthCare Inc. (Wayne, N.J.) Ra223 dichloride Oncology compound Castration-resistant prostate cancer NDA has been accepted for filing and was granted priority review 2/14/13 Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Wayne, N.J.) Stivarga Regorafenib Advanced gastrointestinal

Company (Location) Product Description Indication Status Date CANCER ArQule Inc. (Woburn, Mass.) and Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd. (Tokyo) ARQ197 Tivantinib Hepatocellular carcinoma Enrolled their first patient in a pivotal Phase III trial 2/1/13 AVEO Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Cambridge, Mass.) Tivozanib A once-daily, VEGF receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor Advanced renal cell carcinoma Showed overall survival trends favoring the comparator drug Nexavar (sorafenib) at 29.3 months, compared with 28.8

Company (Location) Product Description Indication Status Date AUTOIMMUNE Ablynx NV (Ghent, Belgium) ALX-0061 Anti-IL-6R nanobody Moderately to severely active rheumatoid arthritis Phase I/II data showed ACR20, ACR50 and ACR70 scores of up to 100%, 75% and 63%, respectively 2/14/13 CANCER AbbVie (Chicago) ABT-199 A selective Bcl-2-targeting therapy Chronic lymphocytic leukemia Phase II was suspended after a patient died from tumor lysis syndrome 2/19/13 Acceleron Pharma Inc. (Cambridge, Mass