In the thick of third quarter earnings, it's sometimes easy to forget that the biotech sector has generated a bumper crop of initial public offerings (IPO) this year, with the record of 66 U.S. IPOs set all the back in 2000 poised to fall before year-end.
Early Wednesday, Sanofi SA's board of directors made the move that most observers had expected in recent days, unanimously unseating Chris Viehbacher as CEO after failing to express confidence in him earlier in the week when the big pharma reported third quarter earnings. Viehbacher subsequently resigned as a director of the Paris-based company. The board appointed its chairman, Serge Weinberg, as temporary CEO while Sanofi conducts a global search for a successor.
Can outcomes get any better for Receptos Inc.? That's certainly one question investors, analysts and even company officials were thinking after Receptos disclosed top-line phase II data on lead compound RPC1063 in ulcerative colitis (UC) after Monday's market close.
Celator Pharmaceuticals Inc., which advanced lead compound CPX-351 into a pivotal phase III study in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), hit its target enrollment of 300 patients ahead of schedule and said it would allow others who started the referral and evaluation process to complete enrollment.
Medivation Inc. will pay just $5 million up front, with the potential for another $85 million in development-based milestones and $245 million in sales milestones, for a stake in the PD-1 game through an exclusive global license to Curetech Ltd.'s late-stage molecule, pidilizumab (CT-011).
As its lead compound, telotristat etiprate (LX1032), marches toward the goal line, Lexicon Pharmaceuticals Inc. pocketed $23 million up front as part of a potential $145 million licensing deal with Paris-based Ipsen SA to commercialize the drug outside North America and Japan.
Some biopharmas are beginning to view the tumultuous public markets with a wary eye. Infectious disease specialist Viamet Pharmaceuticals Holdings LLC, which filed in July for a $75 million initial public offering (IPO), is looking through the rearview mirror after filing Monday to withdraw its registration statement.
The spectacular Ice Bucket Challenge, which swelled the coffers of the ALS Association by more than $100 million during the month of August, also fixed a spotlight on the debilitating neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. The fundraiser went viral when 29-year-old Pete Frates, diagnosed with ALS in 2012, and his family shared information about the effort on social media.
Newlink Genetics Corp., which has kept its head down and plowed forward in an approach reflective of its Ames, Iowa, heritage, earned validation of those efforts in a big way, inking an exclusive global license with Roche AG unit Genentech Inc. that could exceed $1 billion.
Everything old is new again for Zynerba Pharmaceuticals Inc., which hit the ground running with a $13 million private raise that included Perceptive Advisors LLC and undisclosed high net worth individual investors. Proceeds from the round will be used to develop the Radnor, Pa.-based company's transdermal cannabinoid therapies, believed to be the first of their kind.
