Aquinox Pharmaceuticals Inc. CEO David Main told investors during a conference call that it was "impossible to know the right answer" to the question of why the phase II trial called Flagship with AQX-1125 failed in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but he noted the very sick patients enrolled had "lots of exacerbations" and "lots of symptoms."
Afferent Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s $55 million in series C money gives the firm enough to pay for work that includes the potential phase III trial with AF-219 in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) cough, enabling the firm to "drive this one home ourselves," CEO Kathleen Glaub told BioWorld Today.
Another hostile takeover bid in the industry – this time by Horizon Pharma plc to grab Depomed Inc. for $29.25 per share in an all-stock, tax-free deal – set Wall Street buzzing, as Horizon offered a 42 percent premium over Monday's closing price of Depomed to make a deal valued at about $3 billion.
Versartis Inc. fulfilled its vow to provide the requested "bioanalytical data" to the FDA around the end of this year's second quarter, but still isn't saying exactly what the agency wanted. "We're staying away from it for competitive reasons and other [ones]," CEO Jay Shepard told BioWorld Today.
Holding back its wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) program from the potential $1 billion deal with Biogen Inc. will let Applied Genetic Technologies Corp. (AGTC) reap more value in a collaboration later, as the firm deploys "a better understanding of vector design [that] has come about in the last five to seven years," which allows for "really being able to target the capsid, the promoter, the physical delivery method," CEO Sue Washer told BioWorld Today.
Cerespir Inc. submitted a special protocol assessment (SPA) plan for the phase III trial with CSP-1103 to treat mild cognitive impairment (MCI) Alzheimer's disease (AD) – "the right drug at the right time," CEO Daniel Chain told BioWorld Today.
With a progressive strategy that's "building an ecosystem," Biondvax Pharmaceuticals Ltd. offered upbeat preliminary results from the BVX-006 phase II trial gauging the worth of M-001 in the Ness Ziona, Israel-based firm's quest for a universal influenza vaccine, and analyst Ashok Kumar at Aegis Capital Corp. tagged what could be alluring prospects for would-be partners or buyers of the firm.
As a paper last month in Nature predicted a "bumpy road" ahead for RNA polymerase II research, pointing to an "additional level of complexity" that has turned up in the work, Pharmamar SA – bolstered by impressive phase II results – forged ahead with the phase III experiment testing PM1183 (lurbinectedin) in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer (PROC).
News of Celladon Corp.'s possible liquidation after the CUPID2 phase IIb failure in April of gene therapy candidate Mydicar for heart failure (HF) may have sent shivers through the gene therapy sector, but progress ought to provide a heartening counterbalance as researchers continue to refine their methods.
With "fivefold increase in half-life" and "no safety complications whatsoever," CSL Behring's long-acting fusion protein that links recombinant coagulation factor IX with recombinant albumin (rIX-FP) "is going to benefit patients in an extraordinary way," Debra Kennedy, head of coagulant and oncology therapeutics, told BioWorld Today.
