Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc., which has quietly labored on liver drug emricasan (IDN-6556) since gaining global rights to the asset in its 2010 acquisition of Pfizer Inc. spin-out Idun Pharmaceuticals Inc., became the latest biotech to register with the SEC for an initial public offering (IPO).
With the official start of summer just around the corner, BioWorld again polled industry execs and our own indefatigable staff to construct a diverse list of titles for your reading pleasure. Whether the summer solstice takes you to a deck chair on your back porch or to commanding views on a foreign shore, you’ll find something of interest to savor from our 7th Annual Biotech Summer Reading List. Fiction: Cromwell’s England to Galactic Intrigue BioWorld staff writer Sharon Kingman suggested the “cracking novel” Sacred Hunger, by Barry Unsworth, that features an underlying science theme on the discovery of the circulation...
Privately held Dermira Inc. lifted its veil of silence, at least partially, to disclose $35 million in new funding. The infusion came in a Series B financing that included Japanese dermatology specialist Maruho Co. Ltd., of Osaka, and existing investors Bay City Capital, New Enterprise Associates and Canaan Partners as well as a "related transaction" that CEO Tom Wiggans coyly sidestepped.
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) has been at the center of a vortex of controversy since the FDA handed down a complete response letter on the Toll-like receptor 3 modulator Ampligen (rintatolimod) from Hemispherx Bioscience Inc. – the only drug in development for CFS – despite the impassioned pleas of patients at an Arthritis Advisory Committee meeting in December 2012.
Global pharmaceutical companies have recognized China as a force to be reckoned with, as evidenced by their lockstep establishment of R&D and commercial operations in the country. However, a China strategy is a bit trickier for U.S. biotechs to achieve.
Shares of Pluristem Therapeutics Inc. stumbled Tuesday on word that the FDA placed a clinical hold on the U.S. Phase II study (IND 15038) of its allogeneic cell therapy in intermittent claudication (IC), a subset of peripheral artery disease (PAD), following a serious allergic reaction that required the patient's hospitalization.
Amgen Inc. didn't exactly take the blue ribbon for data on oncolytic immunotherapy talimogene laherparepvec, better known as T-VEC, at ASCO 2013. However, a first pass at key overall survival (OS) findings suggested the compound may still be in the mix for melanoma, though perhaps with a lower anticipated market opportunity than currently marketed Yervoy (ipilimumab, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.) and highly anticipated PD-1 therapies.
Several decades ago, scientists recognized that triggering the series of biochemical events that lead to changes in cell morphology, and ultimately cell death, could be applied in a therapeutic fashion, along with the clearance of apoptotic cells, which is essential to regulate inflammation and maintain immunotolerance.
The sizzling initial public offering (IPO) market gained two more biopharma contestants with a third moving carefully toward it, as Prosensa Therapeutics BV filed an F-1 registration statement, Evoke Pharma Inc. filed an S-1 and Oculus Innovative Sciences Inc. disclosed that subsidiary Ruthigen Inc. submitted a confidential draft registration statement to the SEC.
Jennerex Biotherapeutics Inc. completed an insider-based $21.6 million private placement, capping a fruitful week that included the full enrollment of a Phase IIb study of oncolytic cancer vaccine Pexa-Vec (JX-594, pexastimogene devacirepvec) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), publication of clinical and preclinical data in Science Translational Medicine and release of three abstracts scheduled for presentation at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting next week in Chicago.
