Salix Pharmaceuticals Ltd.’s $2.6 billion buyout of Santarus Inc. for $32 per share in cash provides entry into the primary care physician space, while bringing aboard more products – albeit a couple that are facing patent expirations fairly soon.
The Johnson & Johnson (J&J) Innovation Center, through J&J unit Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., is pledging up to $10 million up front per program, followed by as much as $145 million more for each, in a deal with Evotec AG that aims to find and target the true originators of Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
The FDA’s partial clinical hold on CUDC-427 because of a cancer patient’s death from liver failure overshadowed third-quarter earnings for Curis Inc., which is analyzing possible causes.
Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Inc.’s Zerenex (ferric citrate) may be poised to become the first oral iron booster that also provides phosphorous control in chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients, if new top-line data from a Phase II trial hold up.
Partnered with Adimab LLC for antibody development in dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Alector LLC raised an undisclosed amount of money in its Series A round, enough to last “two or three years, we think,” said CEO Arnon Rosenthal, who estimated “at least four years before we are in the clinic” with a drug that might succeed where so many others have not.
Two of five biomarkers found by Merrimack Pharmaceuticals Inc. ended up predictive of benefit from MM-121 in 34 percent of patients who took part in the company’s failed Phase II trial against ovarian cancer – a finding that took some of the sting out of the overall outcome.
Although opioid-induced constipation (OIC) has gotten most of the press in recent years, Charleston Laboratories Inc. may be about to change all that, given Phase III success with CL-108, which provides the pain relief of hydrocodone without the side effects that are even more prevalent: nausea and vomiting (OINV).
A surprise delay in the launch of Biogen Idec Inc.’s long-lasting recombinant factor VIII candidate for hemophilia A, Eloctate – partnered with Swedish Orphan Biovitrum (Sobi) – did little to dampen investor joy over third-quarter earnings, thanks to another home run with Tecfidera (dimethyl fumarate).
Dynavax Technologies Corp. gained financial traction for the continued traversal of its long road with hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine Heplisav, pulling down about $132 million in a pair of public offerings that will fund another, FDA-mandated Phase III trial.
With Rigel Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s R333 kaput in Phase II trials for skin lesions in discoid lupus erythematosus patients, attention has turned from the topical JAK/SYK inhibitor to fostamatinib, an oral SYK inhibitor bound for Phase III trials in the first half of next year in immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP).
