Once again, Amgen Inc. beat analyst expectations for the quarter. The big biotech reported third quarter earnings of $1.40 per share, well ahead of the $1.29 per share expected by Wall Street.GAAP EPS was just 50 cents per share, however, thanks largely to a $780 million reserve Amgen established to settle various investigations into the sales and marketing of its erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESA). Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Peacock said the settlements should be finalized "over the next three to four months."

Shares of Exelixis Inc. popped 24.2 percent Monday thanks to impressive results from a Phase III trial of cabozantinib in medullary thyroid cancer (MTC), but analysts remained cautious about the drug's potential in the larger prostate cancer indication.

Dermira Inc. popped onto the dermatology scene last week with a $42 million Series A financing and the acquisition of a handful of assets out of both industry and academia, including QLT Inc. spin-out Valocor Therapeutics Inc.

GlaxoSmithKline plc's RTS,S vaccine won accolades last week for its Phase III success against malaria, but perhaps less recognized was the product's signal of progress in the adjuvant development field.

If you walked up to a desk to sign a consent form for an experiment, and the person behind the desk bent down to file your form, and a different person stood up – someone with a clearly different face, different hair, even a different colored shirt – would you notice? As this video shows, 75 percent of people don’t – illustrating a phenomenon known as change blindness. French researcher J. Kevin O'Regan explains change blindness thus: “a very large change in a picture will not be seen by a viewer, if the change is accompanied by a visual disturbance...

SAN DIEGO – Johnson & Johnson is expected to announce Tuesday the launch of Janssen Labs at San Diego, a 30,000-square-foot incubator designed to serve as the future home for 18 to 20 biotech start-ups.

Hua Medicine Ltd. made headlines last month with the news that it had raised $50 million in start-up funding from a blue-chip syndicate including Arch Venture Partners, Fidelity, Venrock, Sino-Alliance International Ltd. and WuXi PharmaTech Corporate Venture.

After a strong first half that almost put the pre-recession days of 2007 within reach, a steep decline in third-quarter biotech fundraising had most folks reaching for the TUMS.