Chromocell Corp. CEO Christian Kopfli told BioWorld Today that payments in his firm's potential $500 million deal with Astellas Pharma Inc. are "evenly spaced" along the development path for the oral Nav1.7 inhibitor CC8464 to treat neuropathic pain, for which trials are expected to start next year.

As the market awaits first data from a phase II trial in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) around the middle of next year, Epizyme Inc. disclosed results showing that none of three patients with synovial sarcoma in the phase I trial with first-in-class EZH2 inhibitor tazemetostat showed a clinical response, but the firm is continuing with a phase II experiment in such patients as well.

Bellerophon Therapeutics Inc.'s inhaled nitric oxide seems poised to become a key add-on, orphan therapy in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and, if all goes well, could also end up the only approved therapy in pulmonary hypertension when associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Investors wanted but didn't get details from Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. about next clinical moves, though the firm offered color Thursday on positive phase II data disclosed the previous day with emricasan, an oral pan-caspase inhibitor, in severe portal hypertension (PH) with cirrhosis.

What one analyst described as Heron Therapeutics Inc.'s "profound benefit" in phase II data with HTX-011 for post-bunionectomy pain triggered speculation about how the findings might translate into a pivotal trial with the compound, a long-acting formulation of the numbing agent bupivacaine in a fixed-dose pairing with the anti-inflammatory therapy meloxicam.

BOSTON – As attendees headed home from Biopharm America, likely one of the better-recalled sessions was the pharma roundtable that provided a packed room with glimpses inside some of the major deal makers and how they operate.

BOSTON – Concluding with sessions devoted to regenerative medicine, Biopharm America hosted a panel talk on the state of gene and cell therapy, "a new frontier for all of us," said Frank Borriello, head of search and evaluation for Baxalta Inc., the spinout from Baxter International Inc., of Deerfield, Ill.

BOSTON – Cash-strapped new firms looking to jump the chasm between inception and an empowering series A round got some tips during Biopharm America's "start-up day," as a roundtable of experts took up alternate financing routes and codes of conduct in starting talks ahead of sealing deals.