Somewhere along the way from the heady days of the dot-com era in 2000 the "magic" of achieving a successful biotech initial public offering (IPO) seems to have been lost. Time was that for biotech companies and the venture capitalists who invested in them, a public stock offering was the first major milestone of business and financial success – a preferred exit strategy for VCs and an opportunity for companies to access future public market capital financings and adequately fund their product

As outlined in the first part of this article scanning the rapidly evolving technology landscape of bispecific and multispecific antibodies, interest in them has been renewed big time because various manufacturing, stability and safety issues have been addressed. The field now encompasses a multitude of approaches for creating antibodies against a variety of targets and the number of companies entering this space is surging. (See BioWorld Insight, Feb. 19, 2013.) Although some companies have

After seeing its clinical program stall following the failure of a Phase IIb trial testing NTx-265 in acute stroke, Stem Cell Therapeutics Corp. is reinventing itself. (See BioWorld Today, May 26, 2010.) The first step was hiring David Allan as the executive chairman of the Toronto, Canada-based company. Allan was the founding CEO and chairman of YM BioSciences Inc., which was recently sold to Gilead Sciences Inc. for $510 million (See BioWorld Today, Dec. 13, 2012.) "The Stem Cell board called

The field of hepatitis C virus (HCV) research is hot. So hot, in fact, that in January the BioWorld Today staff ranked the unfolding story of the exceptional performance of HCV potential treatments from the clinic in second place in the top 10 most impactful stories of last year. (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 2, 2013.) Not surprising really as the momentum from 2011 kicked into high gear in 2012. In April, Gilead Sciences Inc. of Foster City, Calif., reported a 100 percent sustained virologic

Financings Aerial BioPharma Inc. completed the second tranche of its $12 million Series A financing. Ambit Biosciences Inc. filed for an initial public offering seeking to raise up to $57.5 million. Novelos Therapeutics Inc. closed a public offering of 11 million units at $0.50 per unit. Oncolytics Biotech Inc. priced a public stock sale of 8 million shares at $4 each. PolyActiva Pte. Ltd. raised $9.5 million in a Series B financing from a consortium of investors. Sernova Corp. raised $1.9

"Outside the U.S. there does not exist a capital market for the life sciences." – David Allan, executive chairman of Stem Cell Therapeutics Corp. "The best outcome may be a reverse merger by a private company seeking to utilize Phytopharm's cash, London Stock Exchange listing and accumulated tax losses." – Robin Davison, analyst, Edison Investment Research on Phytopharm's failure of it lead program in Parkinson's disease "Most companies that have delivery technology . . . They do a little

The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) expects an increased number of filings over the next few weeks as firms rush to file new patents before the reforms of the America Invents Act (AIA) take effect March 16. The PTO has rolled out a slew of new regulations and guidances to implement the switch from first-to-invent to first-to-file, as well as other changes in this sweeping reform. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed with a federal district court that Teva Pharmaceutical

Company Company Deal Value Biogen Idec Inc. Elan Corp. plc $3.25B MacroGenics Inc. Gilead Sciences Inc. $1B The Medicines Co. Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. $205M Afraxis Inc. Genentech Inc. $187.5M BIND Biosciences Inc. Amgen Inc. $180.5M Genentech Inc. RQx Pharmaceuticals Inc. $111M

Total Value in 2013: $5,016.9M* Number of Deals in 2013: 37 Company (Location) Company (Location) Value (M) Type/Product Area Terms/Details Date DECEMBER Amarantus BioScience Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) Power3 Medical Products Inc. (Houston) $0.04 Deal to buy all of the intellectual property assets from Power3, giving Amarantus the ability to acquire IP for the diagnosis of multiple neurodegenerative diseases and oncology Amarantus is paying $40,000, and the deal includes five patents and 20

Company (Location) Company (Location) Value (M) Type/Product Area Terms/Details Date DECEMBER Coronado Biosciences Inc. (Burlington, Mass.) Ovamed GmbH (Barsbüttel, Germany) $1.5 Coronado acquired manufacturing rights to TSO (Trichuris suis ova, CNDO-201) in North America, South America and Japan by amending its existing license and supply agreements Coronado will pay $1.5M to Ovamed in three installments in 2014 through 2016, and will forgo some product supply payments that would have been due

Company (Location) Company (Location) Value (M) Type/Product Area Terms/Details Date I. Modified Agreements JANUARY Auxilium Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Malvern, Pa.) BioSpecifics Technologies Corp. Inc. (Lynbrook, N.Y.) $0.5 Option agreement to expand its license pertaining to collagenase clostridium histolyticum The license will include adult patients with edematous fibrosclerotic panniculopathy, and involves a one-time license fee of $500,000 to BioSpecifics 1/8/13 Evotec AG (Hamburg, Germany