With a handful of collaborations already under way, NGM Biopharmaceuticals Inc. raised $50 million in a Series C round to advance in-house efforts in cardiometabolic diseases, including diabetes and obesity.
Investor disappointment earlier this month regarding positive – but apparently not positive enough – Phase III results with Insmed Inc.'s antibiotic candidate seemed to be turning around on word that the company is netting $58 million in a stock sale to help push Arikace to the finish line.
This week's deal between Affimed Therapeutics AG and Johnson & Johnson put the bispecific antibody space in the headlines once again, as the field took another step toward becoming as hot as antibody-drug conjugates, said Jeremy Bender, chief business officer of Sutro Biopharma Inc., which made news in December via its deal with Celgene Corp.
Firststring Research Inc.'s roll-out of positive, top-line Phase II news in three studies at the International Gap Junction Conference in Charleston, S.C., this week marks the emergence of the company from a low-profile mode.
After taking a stock hit on the ominous promise of a conference call the next morning, Rockwell Medical Inc. turned investor worries around with news that the firm had encouraging top-line data to offer from the Phase III study known as CRUISE-1, testing SFP, an iron-delivery drug for chronic kidney disease patients on dialysis.
Newly formed by the venture firm Aisling Capital, Loxo Oncology Inc. has entered a deal with Array Biopharma Inc. to advance a preclinical candidate developed by Array and to find more small-molecule drugs for oncology targets.
Cytrx Corp.'s decision to stop in May its Phase IIb trial with the synthetic retinoid tamibarotene for non-small-cell lung cancer turned investor eyes to aldoxorubicin, an improved, albumin-binding form of the chemotherapy drug doxorubicin at the same stage of testing in first-line soft-tissue sarcoma (STS).
The regulatory system for drugs in China has improved since officials put the head of the country's FDA to death six years ago for accepting bribes, but the struggle is still uphill for drug developers inside the country and those trying to gain entry.
Last fall, when Biogen Idec Inc. and partner Swedish Orphan Biovitrum (Sobi) made public the Phase III from A-LONG, a trial testing their long-lasting recombinant factor VIII candidate – since branded Eloctate – in hemophilia A, most analysts were pleased but cautious about the treatment's chances anytime soon to dominate Advate, marketed by Baxter Healthcare Corp.
The regulatory system for drugs in China has improved since officials put the head of the country's FDA to death six years ago for accepting bribes, but the struggle is still uphill for drug developers inside the country and those trying to gain entry.
