Citing an unfavorable risk-benefit ratio, Pharmasset Inc. said it was dropping late-stage hepatitis B candidate clevudine and refocusing resources to its earlier-stage pipeline aimed at the increasingly crowded hepatitis C virus space. (BioWorld Today)
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again," has long been the motto of die-hard biotech investors, who have continued funneling cash into troubled firms - sometimes even in the wake of disastrous clinical results - hoping that the next trial, or the next product will be the success story.
Despite rumors (or perhaps hopes) that GlaxoSmithKline plc might follow recent news from Pfizer Inc. and Merck & Co. Inc. with its own mega-merger, the London-based pharma firm has opted for a more modest venture, pooling its HIV portfolio with Pfizer's in an unusual display of cooperation between pharmaceutical competitors. (BioWorld Today)
Shares of Cardiome Pharma Corp. shot up 25 percent after it scored a crucial partnership for its late-stage atrial fibrillation drug, vernakalant. (BioWorld Today)
With limited cash and a pipeline narrowed to a single drug - Silenor (doxepin), an H1 histamine blocker for insomnia - San Diego-based Somaxon Pharmaceuticals Inc. is crossing its fingers that a reanalysis of clinical data will provide sufficient answers to the FDA's February complete response and finally get the drug to market. (BioWorld Today)
