It’s uninhibited. It’s degrading. It’s potentially a new class of drugs that does not just block disease proteins in cancer, but gets rid of them altogether.
More than doubling the hoped-for take from its initial public offering (IPO), Ophthotech Inc. raised $167 million by selling 7.6 million shares at $22 each for ongoing Phase III work with Fovista (formerly E10030), an antiplatelet-derived growth factor agent that would be used with anti-VEGF therapy in wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
With a public offering expected to close later this week that will net the company about $82.6 million for use across its pipeline, Novavax Inc. is moving ahead to finalize cost and timeline details for the next round of trials with its U.S. government-backed quadrivalent seasonal and pandemic influenza vaccines.
BOSTON – “How Far Can You Go with Angel Investors?” asked the title of a panel discussion that included two financiers and two company chiefs at the Biopharm America conference.
BOSTON – Even with a solid strategic fit, quality assets on the table and the likelihood of reimbursement by payers, intellectual property (IP) glitches can hurt a deal, warned Sanjeev Munshi, director of worldwide licensing and acquisition for Merck & Co. Inc.
BOSTON – A lively workshop at EBD Group’s Biopharm America provided attendees with lessons in persuading would-be financiers, as more than two dozen presenters made their 30-second cases to judges, who winnowed the hopefuls to four finalists – each allowed a follow-up, two-minute address – and then a pair of winners.
BOSTON – About 900 attendees and 530 companies are converging on the waterfront Westin hotel here for the sixth annual Biopharm America partnering conference, sponsored by the EBD Group.
As approved prostate cancer drugs duke it out in the prostate cancer space and scramble for pre-chemotherapy patients, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.’s near-miss Phase III results with the anti-CTLA-4 drug Yervoy (ipilimumab) in advanced disease left some cause in the data for optimism that the melanoma therapy might fare better in a separate trial against earlier stages of the tumor.
With $38 million in Series B money, Civitas Therapeutics Inc.’s can finish its ongoing, 80-patient Phase IIb trial testing inhaled levodopa (L-dopa) in Parkinson’s disease patients, and get ready for a Phase III trial that would begin in the second half of next year.
Panelists on the FDA’s Pulmonary-Allergy Drugs Advisory Committee that convened to decide about Anoro Ellipta, the inhaler product for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), proved harder to satisfy than briefing documents might have led Glaxosmithkline plc (GSK) and partner Theravance Inc. to expect.
