After a three-week respite – giving IPO-weary investment bankers and industry analysts a chance to catch up after the rapid succession of pricings in early February – Aquinox Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Recro Pharma Inc. priced initial public offerings Friday as expected, and both made solid if not stunning debuts despite the mystery biopharma sell-off of late last week.
The bad news is that Xoma Corp. said its interleukin-1 beta (IL-1 beta) antibody gevokizumab failed to offer compelling enough data in a phase II study in erosive osteoarthritis (EOA) to warrant phase III investment in that indication, sending the company’s shares down 23 percent Wednesday.
Two more biopharmas joined the initial public offering (IPO) queue late last week – Scynexis Inc. aiming to raise up to $55 million for its fungal infection pipeline and cancer firm Ignyta Inc. filing to raise up to $40 million – and, after two quiet weeks on the IPO front, two firms are expected to make their debuts this week.
On the heels of disclosing a planned 2014 R&D investment hike of more than 60 percent over last year, Compugen Ltd. took the opportunity to pad its coffers with a $63 million public offering.
Scholar Rock Inc. CEO Nagesh Mahanthappa’s previous biopharma experiences include stints at RNAi powerhouse Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. and privately held Avila Therapeutics Inc., which was snapped up by Celgene Corp. in a potential $935 million deal in 2012, and he is the first to admit that “those are high standards.”
Barely a month after Celladon Corp. priced its modest initial public offering (IPO), the San Diego-based firm saw its shares jump 25.5 percent Monday on news of an option deal with French pharma firm Servier based on SERCA2b modulators for metabolic disease.
As Biomarin Pharmaceutical Inc. preps for U.S. commercial launch of recently approved mucopolysaccharidosis Type IVA drug Vimizim (elosulfase alfa) and awaits a decision expected Friday from the European Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP), investors have focused largely on the high pricing for Vimizim – about $380,000 per year – and the expected hike in R&D expenses for 2014.
NEW YORK – Coming on the heels of a flurry of initial public offerings (IPOs) – including a total of seven during the first week of February alone – the annual BIO CEO & Investor conference naturally was rife with commentary and predictions for biopharma activity in the public markets in 2014. Many industry observers, however, agreed that future IPO activity will depend largely on the performance of the Class of 2013.
NEW YORK – With so many big pharmas jumping on the rare disease bandwagon in the past few years, it might sound as though developing drugs for rare and orphan diseases was the pathway of choice.
What if we paid professional athletes only when they won? What if spectators got their tickets refunded whenever the home team lost? That might make that $1,300 Super Bowl ticket a little easier to purchase. And, hey, perhaps that might assuage some of the crushing disappointment for Denver fans still bemoaning the Broncos’ embarrassing defeat. (Though, on second thought, maybe not. Broncos’ fans are pretty passionate and hard core.) But along those same lines, what if we paid for therapeutics only when they worked? That would keep the cost of health care from further spiraling out of control, right? That...
