The scientific campaign for a better version of Velcade (bortezomib, Takeda Oncology Co.) for multiple myeloma (MM) that began at Proteolix Inc. survived two mergers and ultimately failed, but led to the formation of Kezar Life Sciences Inc., with a promising approach, not to cancer but to autoimmune disorders.

"Playing chess with the disease" is how CEO Steve Worland describes Effector Therapeutics Inc.'s approach, a translational regulation strategy in cancer that bagged the San Diego-based company $38.6 million in series C money.

With Celgene Corp. gaining strategically important rights to a PD-1 inhibitor developed by Beigene Ltd. earlier this month and with activity in the PD space still revving, Cytomx Therapeutics Inc. CEO Sean McCarthy told BioWorld Insight it's important that oncology "not get too stuck [on a single drug class] and continue to ask questions" scientifically.

Though analysts seemed uncertain in February about the commercial future despite favorable phase III data, they came away upbeat from a meeting last week with Trevena Inc. about injectable Olinvo (oliceridine) for moderate to severe acute pain. H.C. Wainwright's Ed Arce said his firm believes the company "has set its eyes on a realistic and promising target market" for the opioid receptor mu agonist, though Wall Street hardly seemed of that opinion earlier in the year.

As the company made its second acquisition in a month, Emergent Biosolutions Inc. CEO Daniel Abdun-Nabi vowed that the hunt for more prospects will continue and could include "vaccines, therapeutics, devices across the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives [or CBRNE federal countermeasures spectrum], as well as emerging infectious disease spaces. They could be products. They could be full businesses. The whole portfolio of opportunities that we're looking at is quite broad."

As investors waited Wednesday afternoon for Sarepta Therapeutics Inc.'s second-quarter earnings, news of a managed access program (MAP) with Clinigen Group plc's Idis division for Exondys 51 (eteplirsen) in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) had Wall Street speculating that the deal would add to fiscal-year 2017 guidance of more than $95 million.

In a big news day for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) companies, Capricor Therapeutics Inc. CEO Linda Marbán told BioWorld that investors will "see news coming in the next week or two with a clearly delineated path to registration" for CAP-1002. "We have a trial design; we have a plan on what has to be done."

At this year’s meeting of the American Diabetes Association (ADA), a scientific summit intended to highlight the latest advances, what stood out most was the lack of them, Vtv Therapeutics Inc.’s chief scientific officer (CSO), Carmen Valcarce, told BioWorld.

Topping off a series A round that began in the summer of 2015 with $55 million, E-Scape Bio Inc. raised $63 million in total that CEO Leon Chen told BioWorld should carry the firm into proof-of-concept work that takes aim at the apolipoprotein E4 (ApoE4) protein structure in Alzheimer's disease (AD).

With multiple phase II readouts ahead this year, Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. is "putting all the pieces on the table and we'll assemble them in a way that brings the astronauts back to earth," CEO Amit Munshi told BioWorld.