Macrogenics Inc. enticed another big pharma partner to the table with a candidate from its Dual-Affinity Re-Targeting, or DART platform. Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., of Osaka, Japan, took an option to develop and commercialize MGD010, a preclinical asset targeting autoimmune diseases, that uses DART to simultaneously engage the B-cell surface proteins CD32B and CD79B.
Spark Therapeutics Inc., which burst on the gene therapy scene last October, lit a fire under a syndicate of investors that plowed $72.8 million into a series B just seven months after the company's launch.
Launched last year with a portfolio of early stage small molecules and late-stage clinical assets assembled through a pair of acquisitions, Voltarra Pharmaceuticals Inc. has moved like lightning – a strategy underpinning the company's name – into phase III trials for its lead candidate.
Though biotechs Ardelyx Inc. and Kite Pharma Inc. have virtually nothing in common except headquarters in California, both filed for initial public offerings (IPOs) Monday, hoping to keep that wobbly window open.
Steve Prestrelski has a fascination with improving drug delivery. Two decades of experience in biotech convinced the research scientist and inventor that some of the biggest shortcomings associated with promising drugs were related largely to formulation and delivery mechanisms.
Privately held Proteon Therapeutics Inc. weighed the public and private markets when considering the optimal strategy to fund the initial phase III study of lead compound PRT-201. With attractive term sheets in one hand and the vagaries of an initial public offering in the other, the decision was simple enough.
Although innovation is the topic of much conversation in China's biopharma industry, Western companies are likely to observe that the notion of innovative drug development in China is more hype than reality. However, participants at the Chinabio Partnering Forum, held in Suzhou earlier this month, offered compelling evidence that Chinese biotechs are, indeed, transforming cutting-edge discoveries into drug pipelines, with partnering opportunities very much welcomed.
Just five years after its founding and after raising approximately $100 million across four venture rounds, ZS Pharma Inc. followed the well-trod path toward an initial public offering (IPO), where it will seek to raise up to $86 million.
SUZHOU, China – Venture investing in China's life sciences industry continued a three-year upswing in 2013, according to speakers at the Chinabio Partnering Forum, with more than $1 billion in publicly disclosed deals last year. Cynics might correctly argue the amount represents just a fraction of the annual R&D budget of a single large pharma. Still, the steady rise in venture capital (VC) – much of it homegrown – represents another key indicator that China is building a sustainable life sciences ecosystem.
