SAN FRANCISCO – When talking trends in biopharma there’s no shortage of metaphors – Tuesday’s health care debate, for example, went for the timely baseball terms, referencing singles and home runs – or oft-overused industry buzzwords, of which the recent Allicense meeting featured several, among them the apparent new fave, “optionality,” a word not actually found in Webster’s. But during the two-day conference a certain gastronomically charged trend emerged, fitting, I suppose, given San Francisco’s reputation as a destination for foodies. There were appetizers: “When they’re passing out the hors d’oeuvres, use both hands,” said Isaac Ciechanover, CEO of Atara...
SAN FRANCISCO – Amid all the dealmaking and financing talks at this year's Allicense meeting, one topic continually returned to the surface: the increasingly dicey area of reimbursement.
Pozen Inc. said it expects to fully address the third-party manufacturing issues raised in the FDA's complete response letter (CRL) for drug candidates PA8140/PA32540, but the latest delay for the gastrointestinal-friendly aspirin candidates opened the door for investor anxiety, including concerns that the company's strategy of combining two generic components might not make for a commercial success story.
The eagerly awaited earnings season kicked off this week, but investors hoping for first-quarter sales data to restore stability to the selloff-plagued biotech sector are unlikely to see a quick fix as the drug pricing debate continues to garner headlines. But promising pipeline opportunities should keep the top four big biotechs on steady ground in the year ahead.
"The worst disease you've never heard of." That's how patient advocacy and nonprofit group Debra (Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa Research Association of America) refer to epidermolysis bullosa (EB), a rare genetic disorder characterized by fragile skin that it often leaves its sufferers with chronic open wounds and blisters.
An angina drug dating back to the 1970s until its use was curtailed due to toxicity is back in development, this time aimed at rare hereditary heart disease hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) in the hands of Heart Metabolics Ltd., which relaunched as an Irish firm and disclosed Thursday a $20 million series A round.
As the tag line for the upcoming Allicense meeting in San Francisco suggests, this year's focus is on the "next generation" of dealmaking. But that isn't just an industry buzzword.
Two more biopharma firms priced initial public offerings (IPOs), though Adamas Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Cerulean Pharmaceuticals Inc. received lukewarm welcomes on Nasdaq Thursday, as the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index – after a short-lived rally the day before – took another slide.
Deemed “fantastic” by a leukemia expert, phase I data presented by Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc. snagged the spotlight Sunday at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) meeting in San Diego, with isocitrate dehydrogenase-2 (IDH2)-targeting candidate AG-221 producing a complete remissions (CRs) in three of seven evaluable patients.
Halozyme Therapeutics Inc. said it is working quickly to assess an unexpected imbalance in thromboembolic event rate between treatment and control groups, which prompted a halt to its phase II trial testing PEGPH20 in pancreatic cancer, though the lack of detail left room for plenty of speculation.
