HONG KONG – Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co. Ltd. has made progress on its proposed purchase of the majority stake in India's Gland Pharma Ltd., with a recent amendment stating it would acquire 74 percent of the interest in the Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company for $1.09 billion, instead of the original proposed 86 percent for $1.26 billion.

A study showing that an inhibitor of WNT signaling had differential effects on the lung and bone metastasis of breast cancer could have important implications for treating breast cancer, Chinese researchers reported in the Sept. 11, 2017, online edition of Nature Cell Biology.

Supernus Pharmaceuticals Inc. shares fell 23.4 percent Tuesday after the company dropped one of two doses of an experimental treatment for impulsive aggression in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) that it was evaluating in twin phase III studies.

For scientists aiming to combat the long-known problem of axonal degeneration, "the issue was that there wasn't a lever to pull, there wasn't a drug target," Disarm Therapeutics Inc.'s acting CEO, Jason Rhodes, told BioWorld.

The Senate Finance Committee hearing on corporate tax reform included the usual discussion about the high tax rate imposed on companies in the U.S., but the committee's chairman, Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), said he is still focused on a proposal to allow corporations to deduct dividends paid to shareholders, a move he said would serve as "a complement to a statutory corporate tax rate reduction, not a substitute."

Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc. CEO Emil Kakkis said his company seized "an opportune moment" to enter gene therapy via the cash counter-offer for Dimension Therapeutics Inc. at $5.50 per share, or about $138 million, stacking the proposal against last month's all-stock bid valued at around $110 million by Regenxbio Inc.

Cytokinetics Inc., of South San Francisco, reported additional results from its phase II Chronic Oral Study of Myosin Activation to Increase Contractility in Heart Failure (COSMIC-HF) trial testing omecamtiv mecarbil in 448 patients with chronic heart failure and left ventricular systolic dysfunction at the Heart Failure Society of America Scientific Meeting in Dallas.

A pivotal trial comparing lefamulin, Nabriva Therapeutics plc's antibiotic for patients with community-acquired bacterial pneumonia (CABP), to the standard-of-care treatment, moxifloxacin, found it noninferior to the well-known quinolone, sparking new confidence in the Sandoz GmbH spinout as it heads from the now completed I.V.-to-oral LEAP 1 study into the all-oral LEAP 2 trial, top-line results of which are expected during spring of 2018.

Startup Lifemine Therapeutics Inc. followed up its $5 million seed round, quietly raised last year, with a $55 million series A led by Wuxi Healthcare Ventures, which was joined by Foresite Capital, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Arch Ventures, Boyu Capital, Blue Pool Capital, Merck Ventures and Alexandria Venture Investments. Co-founded by Harvard Medical School professor, serial entrepreneur and investor Gregory Verdine, who serves as president, CEO and chief scientific officer, Lifemine is seeking to scale the genomic discovery of drugs from eukaryotic microbes, or fungi, by combining genomics with artificial intelligence and synthetic biology.

DUBLIN – Shares in Thrombogenics NV rose 16 percent Monday on news that the Alcon unit of Novartis AG was handing back ex-U.S. rights to Jetrea (ocriplasmin), while also providing a cash payment of €53.7 million (US$64.2 million) and an equity investment of €10 million to the Leuven, Belgium-based biotech.