NEW YORK – After kicking off last month's J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, Celgene Corp. sounded the starter pistol for this year's BIO CEO & Investor Conference, with CEO Bob Hugin taking the seat in the meeting's first fireside chat Monday morning at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel.
The weekend "snowmageddon" deterred few from attending this year's BIO CEO & Investor Conference – a BIO rep, in fact, said only one speaker had to cancel – and attendees made their way to the Waldorf-Astoria hotel on Park Avenue through slush-filled sidewalks on a rainy Monday morning.
The recent spike in Hyperion Therapeutics Inc.'s stock proved to be warranted Friday, when the FDA issued an approval for Ravicti (glycerol phenylbutyrate) for the chronic management of some urea cycle disorders (UCDs) in patients, ages 2 and older.
In the second biotech initial public offering (IPO) to price this week, antibody drug developer KaloBios Pharmaceuticals Inc. priced a slightly upsized offering of 8.75 million shares at $8 apiece for gross proceeds of $70 million. Like Stemline Therapeutics Inc., which priced an IPO Tuesday, KaloBios came in at the low end of its expected pricing range.
Biogen Idec Inc.'s fourth-quarter earnings missed estimates, but Wall Street barely noticed as revenue topped expectations, driven largely by steady growth in multiple sclerosis (MS) drugs Avonex (interferon beta-1a) and Tysabri (natalizumab), with investors already looking ahead to the much-anticipated launch of oral MS drug BG-12.
A month after the earlier-than-expected approval of Iclusig (ponatinib) in chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc. is taking advantage of the current public markets to more than double its cash balance.
With antibiotic candidate tedizolid nearing the finish line, Trius Therapeutics Inc. is shoring up its balance sheet with a $29.9 million public offering, strengthening its position ahead of partnering discussions in Europe.
Three months after its shares were clobbered on disappointing survival data in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), ArQule Inc.'s stock sank again, after tivantinib, its MET inhibitor, missed primary and secondary endpoints in a Phase II trial in second-line colorectal cancer (CRC).
Despite a clinical setback in 2009, when two massive Phase III trials of cangrelor were halted for lack of apparent efficacy, the antiplatelet candidate is back on track, as The Medicines Co. reported positive results from a new Phase III study.
The promise of RNAi – the idea that specific genes can be pinpointed and silenced to treat disease – has loomed large on biopharma's radar for the past decade, even netting a 2006 Nobel to RNAi discoverers Craig Mello and Andrew Fire.
