"Nobody has done this before," Visterra Inc. CEO Brian Pereira told BioWorld, talking about the company's approach in immunoglobulin A (IgA) nephropathy, an effort that is part of what fueled his company's just-finished $46.7 million series C financing. Using computational tools and methods from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Visterra is "not an antibody discovery company," he said. "We design and engineer novel antibody-based solutions" that include monoclonal antibodies (MAbs), bispecific antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs).

As Catabasis Pharmaceuticals Inc. geared up for an FDA-blessed phase III trial, Wall Street already went to work handicapping the chances for later-stage success with the oral Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) therapy edasalonexent.

BOSTON – At last week's Biopharm America meeting, Astellas Pharma Inc.'s Salim Mujais sat down with BioWorld Asia for a high-level look at the Tokyo-based firm's efforts in therapeutic areas outside of cancer.

Although trading nipped shares of United Therapeutics Corp. when the news broke, few onlookers likely felt shock when the data monitoring committee (DMC) decreed earlier this month that the company keep going with its Freedom-Ev trial testing vasodilator Orenitram (treprostinil extended-release tablets).

BOSTON – At last week's Biopharm America meeting, Astellas Pharma Inc.'s Salim Mujais sat down with BioWorld for a high-level look at the Tokyo-based firm's efforts in therapeutic areas outside of cancer.

BOSTON – How to get around venture capital (VC) firms when raising money in a company's early days yielded a lively panel discussion among alternative funders who explored various routes.

BOSTON – The "softer side of negotiation" was among topics covered during Biopharm America's second day, where Anjan Aralihalli, chief business officer of Glypharma Therapeutic Inc., of Montreal, asked attendees: "Are humans rational? Are we like Spock, where we think very rationally, or are we more like Homer Simpson?" Economic policy, he said, is "all premised on the underpinning that we think and make decisions rationally, but we don't."

BOSTON – Although a panel of venture capital (VC) investors set up to mull "the next big thing" on their wish lists appeared shy about answering the question, the talk turned up some important insights for attendees of BioPharm America on the event's first day.

Regenera Pharma Ltd. CEO Jordan Rubinson told BioWorld that “there’s over $1 billion dollars of market value, of revenues, in the first five years” if the company can succeed in a planned phase III trial and win approval for RPH-201 in nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION), “essentially a stroke of the optic nerve.”

"In our minds, you really need [growth hormone] to be small and unmodified," Jonathan Leff, chief medical officer (CMO) for Ascendis Pharma A/S, told BioWorld, since such therapy must "get out of the bloodstream, penetrate into small nooks and crannies such as bone growth plates, and adipose tissue that's poorly vascularized. You don't mess with Mother Nature. It sounds simple and trite, but it's absolutely true in this case."