Merrimack Pharmaceuticals Inc. raised $77 million in a Series G to finance its full house of five clinical-stage cancer candidates, plus a trio of preclinical candidates and multiple research-stage programs.
Third Rock Ventures has funded its largest ever Series A for new start-up Blueprint Medicines, based in Cambridge, Mass. Blueprint was established to develop cancer therapies based on the company's Insights-to-Validation platform and its chemical library. Blueprint's approach is to use cancer genome data to create kinase-targeted cancer therapies using a personalized medicine approach.
Two months after submitting a U.S. Biologics License Application for VEGF Trap-Eye (afilbercept ophthalmic solution) in wet age-related macular degeneration, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Bayer HealthCare began Phase III trials in a new indication, diabetic macular edema (DME).
Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma Co. Ltd. (DSP) bested a field of a dozen interested companies to license a small-molecule oncology drug, BBI608, from Boston Biomedical Inc. DSP will pay $15 million up front, with the potential for up to $155 million more in development costs and milestones. The agreement covers all oncology indications in Japan, and exclusive right of negotiation for the drug in the U.S. and Canada.
As threatened last week, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. is moving to replace Cephalon Inc.'s board of directors following a rejection of its $5.7 billion hostile takeover bid. And the big pharma isn't taking "no" as a final answer: It's putting the question to Cephalon stockholders.
Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. has settled its lawsuit with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and will soon see less money going to litigation and more going to innovation. The lawsuit, filed in 2009 by Cubist, alleged that Jerusalem-based Teva had infringed on Cubist's patent for Cubicin (daptomycin for injection) by filing for FDA approval of a generic version of Cubicin.
Tranzyme Inc. priced an initial public offering (IPO) to raise $54 million to support its pipeline of drugs for gastrointestinal motility disorders. The offering price of $4 per share is one-third its original target of $11 to $13.
A merger between Worcester, Mass.-based RXi Pharmaceuticals Corp. and Apthera Inc., of Scottsdale, Ariz., will round out RXi's portfolio of investigational immunotherapies, and give the company a much-needed boost into clinical development.
Amgen Inc. and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. shared their disappointment today regarding top-line results of a Phase III trial of their VEGF inhibitor, motesanib, for nonsquamous non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. agreed to sell 12.15 million shares of common stock and 12,150 shares of preferred stock to entities affiliated with Deerfield Management. From gross proceeds of $35.5 million, approximately $17.7 million will be used to prepay a portion of loan principle owed to Deerfield. That principle would have been due in June 2013.
