Although the buyout of Therakos Inc. for about $1.3 billion is the second drug-device acquisition by Mallinckrodt plc this year, it's because of the synergies between the two firms involved in the deals rather than a preference for such technology per se.

As part of its second quarter earnings report, Biocryst Pharmaceuticals Inc. said it was adding a 14-day treatment cohort to its phase I study in healthy volunteers of kallikrein inhibitor BCX7353, intended as a next-generation, once-daily hereditary angioedema (HAE) therapy.

Aquinox Pharmaceuticals Inc. CEO David Main called bladder pain syndrome/interstitial cystitis (BPS/IC) "a sizable opportunity that few appreciate," but Wall Street's reaction to phase II secondary endpoint data with AQX-1125 suggested investors were climbing aboard in hordes, as the firm (NASDAQ:AQXP) closed trading Friday at $10.42, up $8.63, or 482 percent.

Cytodyn Inc. CEO Nader Pourhassan told BioWorld Today that his firm's advance into phase III trials with a self-injectable biologic for HIV bought several years ago from Progenics Pharmaceuticals Inc. may augur an era of not only vastly safer but more effective therapy, much less frequently dosed.

With "significant room for improvement" over the 20 percent response rate in lung cancer achieved by checkpoint inhibitors, Mirati Therapeutics Inc. CEO Charles Baum told BioWorld Today that his firm's spectrum-selective histone deacetylase (HDAC) blocker mocetinostat might get more of the job done when paired with the anti-programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) candidate durvalumab (also known as MEDI4736) from Astrazeneca plc.

Running another trial with the pain drug Zalviso "to us, just doesn't make sense," Timothy Morris, chief financial officer (CFO) of Acelrx Pharmaceuticals Inc., told BioWorld Today, and the company will find out next month how flexible the FDA might be in its demands regarding the stalled drug-device combination therapy.

With positive top-line phase III data for its carcinoid-syndrome therapy boosting shares by 61 percent, Lexicon Pharmaceuticals Inc. was still undervalued in the view of some analysts, as Wall Street awaits late-stage data on the firm's larger opportunity: a therapy for type I diabetes, and possibly type 2.

Winning orphan drug status for a second preclinical cancer therapy is "small but important progress" for Nanosmart Pharmaceuticals Inc., President James Smith told BioWorld Today.

Despite freer-flowing capital for biotech, Foresite Capital closed its third and largest fund at $450 million, and "our strategy hasn't changed," Christine Aylward, managing director, told BioWorld Today. "Is the question, 'Are you being squeezed out because there are other big players into the mix?' We're not."