Shares of Vivus Inc. surged 77.5 percent Thursday following an overwhelmingly positive vote by the FDA's Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee for its weight loss candidate Qnexa (phentermine/topiramate). (See BioWorld Today, Feb. 23, 2012.)
Vascular Magnetics Inc.'s co-founder and chief operating officer, Richard S. Woodward, spent the past year with a tin cup in his hand, "looking for money" to get the firm's magnetically targeted drug delivery system for peripheral artery disease (PAD) through a first-in-man study.
Protalix Biotherapeutics Inc., of Carmiel, Israel, priced a public offering of 4.5 million shares at $5.25 per share, a 14.3 percent discount to Wednesday's closing price, which will bring in about $23.6 million in gross proceeds.
Disappointing results from Gilead Sciences Inc.'s Phase II ELECTRON study of nucleotide analogue polymerase inhibitor GS-7977 showed that six out of eight patients with a prior null response to an interferon regimen relapsed within four weeks of completing a course of GS-7977 plus ribavirin.
Protalix Biotherapeutics Inc., of Carmiel, Israel, priced a public offering of 4.5 million shares at $5.25 per share, a 14.3 percent discount to Wednesday's closing price, which will bring in about $23.6 million in gross proceeds.
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s underwritten public offering of 7.5 million shares at $10.75 apiece sent shares of the Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech surging more than 14 percent Wednesday as investors showed their approval of its pipeline and partnering power.
A promising candidate for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis forms the basis of an acquisition deal between Biogen Idec Inc. and Stromedix Inc., of Cambridge, Mass. Biogen will pay $75 million up front, and up to $487.5 million in milestones for the company, gaining Stromedix's humanized monoclonal antibody, STX-100.
Regeneron revised its earnings guidance for Eylea (aflibercept) for 2012, from $140 million to $160 million to a range of $250 million to $300 million, after the newly launched therapy for wet age-related macular degeneration had a strong performance in its first quarter of sales. The Tarrytown, N.Y.-based firm reported that 30,000 injections of Eylea had been given to date.
The breakup of a $1.38 billion stem cell partnership between Genzyme Corp. and Osiris Therapeutics Inc., dating to 2008, was heralded by an offhand mention in a Sanofi SA post-Genzyme-acquisition pipeline update, sending the biotech's shares down 15 percent Thursday.
Altheos Inc., of South San Francisco, raised an additional $12.5 million in its Series A financing and will be cashing the check immediately to support a Phase IIa trial of its glaucoma candidate, which recently dosed its first patient.
