Unum Therapeutics Inc. followed up last year's series A financing round with a series B that almost triples the amount, hauling down $65 million and adding seven fresh investors to its roster behind New Leaf Venture Partners, the debut backer that led the round.
Melinta Therapeutics Inc.'s $67 million equity financing will allow the company to finish the half-completed, second phase III trial for acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections with new fluoroquinolone antibiotic delafloxacin – the first in that class for 14 years – and file for FDA approval in early 2016 while moving ahead with other efforts, CEO Mary Szela said.
The first of two protein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9 (PCSK9) inhibitors to lower low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) made its way with favor through the FDA's Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee (EMDAC), setting the stage for the second – maybe more fraught – PCSK9, which EMDAC will evaluate today.
Clarus Ventures has a two-pronged, "roughly equal-weighted" strategy with its latest fund, Clarus III, which closed at $500 million, well above the targeted $375 million, managing director Scott Requadt told BioWorld Today: therapeutics-focused companies at all stages, with breakthrough science and/or best-in-class assets, and R&D risk-sharing partnerships with the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.
An FDA panel's provisory vote of confidence for a drug from Sprout Pharmaceuticals Inc. that could become the first ever therapy for hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in premenopausal women lifted shares of a would-competitor: Palatin Technologies Inc., which is advancing its candidate through phase III trials.
Complete with an assay that helps select eligible patients, the approved prostate-cancer (PC) drug Xtandi (enzalutamide) from Medivation Inc. and partner Astellas Pharma Inc. turned up hopeful phase II results in androgen-receptor (AR)-positive triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), detailed at the recently concluded meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.
CHICAGO – No one was surprised to see immune-based therapies taking much of the air time at this year's American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting, since they've dominated the key scientific powwow in cancer for several years, and a fountain of outcomes showed that targeted drugs, in combination regimens as well as single agents, still have plenty going for them.
CHICAGO – Following up last March's investor-pleasing top-line phase III data from PERSIST-1, which tested the next-generation JAK2/FLT3 multikinase inhibitor pacritinib in myelofibrosis (MF), CTI Biopharma Corp. and partner Baxter International Inc. offered more results that better characterize the drug's position with regard to the marketed JAK2 inhibitor Jakafi (ruxolitinib), developed by Incyte Corp. and partner Novartis AG.
CHICAGO – Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s programmed cell death-1 inhibitor Opdivo (nivolumab), cleared by the FDA late last year for melanoma and in March for squamous non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), worked better than the firm's other approved melanoma drug Yervoy (ipilimumab) in patients with previously untreated cases of the deadly skin cancer not only when the two drugs were given together but also when Opdivo was administered by itself.
