The complement system is designed to kill pathogens through a signal cascade that results in cell lysis, removal of the pathogens through phagocytosis, and alerting other immune system cells to help with infections. Signals come from three different pathways – classical, lectin and alternative – culminating at the C3 protein of the cascade.

SAN DIEGO – When designing phase II proof of concept trials, companies want to maximize the chance of seeing a signal. Avoiding so-called type III errors – trials that would have been successful but were never performed – leads to a "no drug left behind" mentality, Cong Chen, director of biostatistics and research decision science at Merck & Co. Inc. told the audience during a panel at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting last week.

Baseball parks are opening for business this week, but the biotech industry has already hit a grand slam with 26 biotechs raising $1.77 billion through initial public offerings (IPOs) on U.S. exchanges in the first quarter.

With hepatitis C treatments largely figured out, biotechs and investors have turned to the newest liver disease without a treatment: nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH).

SAN DIEGO – To stimulate innovation, pharmaceutical companies have to reinvent themselves, looking outside their walls for early stage compounds.

SAN DIEGO – As the window for companies going public has swung wide open and values across the industry have risen, it’s becoming harder for companies to get deals done.

Orphan-drug specialist, Sigma-Tau Pharmaceuticals Inc. is developing a new class of drugs: live biotherapeutics. As the name implies, Sigma-Tau’s drug candidate, STP206, is a live organism used to repopulate patients’ gastrointestinal tracks.

Last week, Cambridge, Mass.-based Aveo Oncology and Astellas Pharma Inc., of Tokyo, announced that they were discontinuing a Phase II trial testing tivozanib in patients with locally recurrent or metastatic triple negative breast cancer due to insufficient enrollment.

Nearly half of pharmaceutical companies can be found on social media websites according to a report by IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, but most use their accounts as a broadcasting channel with very little interaction with patients and doctors.