When you compare third quarter investments in private U.S companies to the rest of 2015, it doesn't look pretty. Just 39 companies tracked by BioWorld Snapshots garnered the attention of venture capitalists in the third quarter compared to 53 in the first quarter and 50 in the second quarter.
Earlier this month, Raptor Pharmaceutical Corp.'s RP103 (cysteamine bitartrate delayed-release) failed a phase IIb trial in pediatric nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), but the letdown hasn't dampened other companies' enthusiasm for the lucrative NASH market. Good thing, considering there are nearly 90 trials in NASH patients planned or being run by 17 biopharmas and dozens of research institutions, according to Cortellis Clinical Trials Intelligence.
SAN DIEGO – The Interscience Conference of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) kicks off in full swing Friday, but conference-goers got a primer on pandemic diseases Thursday as ICAAC held a joint symposium with the International Society of Infectious Disease.
At the 16th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Denver last week, companies big and small presented data for their lung cancer drug candidates. While immuno-oncology is the sexy new technology moving into lung cancer, plenty of other strategies are being used to keep tumors at bay.
Without a doubt, wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) has been a lucrative market for companies. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. announced $1.2 billion in U.S. sales of Eylea (aflibercept) in the first half of 2015, and Roche AG posted CHF769 million (US$804 million) in U.S. sales of Lucentis (ranibizumab).
Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) was one of the first oncoproteins discovered a half century ago. The protein is expressed in a subset of most epithelial cancers, including non-small-cell lung cancer, colorectal, pancreas, breast, gastric and medullary thyroid cancers. Globeimmune Inc. estimates that CEA is overexpressed in approximately 500,000 new cancer cases in the U.S. each year.
Every drug company wants to get the best price for its drugs, but that's easier said than done, especially in the current environment with payers pushing back at high drug prices and pitting companies against each other to compete on price.
CGRP stands for calcitonin gene-related peptide but it might double for "could get really profitable" if drug companies targeting CGRP and its associated receptor are successful.
It wasn't the perfect second quarter, but we'll take it. You'll recall, U.S. investments in private companies tracked by BioWorld in the first quarter of the year started off like gangbusters, more than doubling the funding in the year-ago quarter. IPOs, on the other hand, left something to be desired.
