LONDON – After a year of testing, Qiagen NV has given Angle plc's Parsortix cancer cell liquid biopsy technology its seal of approval, agreeing to a co-marketing deal in which the two will sell each other's products.

HONG KONG – 3Sbio Inc. inked a proposed asset purchase agreement worth $290 million for the contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) business of Canada's Therapure Biopharma Inc., a deal that would mark 3Sbio's first foray into the North American biopharmaceutical sector.

Early stage pancreatic cancer is typically asymptomatic, making it difficult to detect before it advances and becomes hard to treat. Johns Hopkins University scientists have developed a novel approach by combining a liquid biopsy based on circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) with an analysis of four protein biomarkers to create the basis for a potential biomarker screening tool for the early identification of pancreatic cancer.

Kura Oncology Inc. shares (NASDAQ:KURA) shot 72.3 percent higher to $11.80 Friday on news that its lead candidate, tipifarnib, hit the primary endpoint of a phase II trial in HRAS-mutant relapsed or refractory squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck (SCCHN) before the trial had even completed enrolling. Four confirmed partial responses and two patients with stable disease were observed among the first six evaluable patients enrolled, and two patients showed objective responses beyond one year. Kura said it will continue to enroll additional patients.

Both Summit Therapeutics plc and Insmed Inc. have taken wiping out bacteria to the next level, releasing separate clinical trial data last week that show their drugs target specific bacteria and reach hard-to-treat places in the lung that bacteria hide, respectively.