Less than six months after winning a $36 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) contract for respiratory antibiotic TP-271, Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals Inc. landed a $67 million BARDA contract for broad-spectrum antibiotic TP-434.
With lead drug linaclotide under FDA review for irritable bowel syndrome and chronic constipation, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc. added $79.2 million to its coffers.
ChemoCentryx Inc. raised $45 million in its initial public offering (IPO), following Cempra Inc. and Verastem Inc. out an IPO window that, over the last few years, has proved selective at best.
When I was at the Biocom Global Life Science Partnering Conference last week, one of the more interesting debates I heard was about whether it’s better to in-license an asset or acquire the whole company. While every case is different and most big pharmas pursue both strategies, the business development execs at the conference had some very different opinions as to which is preferable, in a general sense. Martin Birkhofer, vice president of the strategic transactions group at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., said his team generally likes acquisitions because they result in a total transfer of control over the asset. “For...
SAN DIEGO – Mere minutes into the recent Biocom Global Life Science Partnering Conference, a panel of big pharma and big biotech business development executives had already launched into a discussion about hepatitis C virus (HCV).
Even prostate cancer drugs that overcome the challenges of crossover clinical trial design (see a related story on p. 2) and demonstrate overall survival face a tough road ahead.
If you were looking for a sign that post-J.P. Morgan optimism and a flurry of drug approvals might blow the biotech initial public offering (IPO) window open again – keep looking.
The Life Sciences Foundation is a nonprofit that doesn't want your money – it wants your history. It is not going to turn down a donation, but what the foundation really wants is for you to dig through your garage and find that old shoebox of mementos from your early days at Cetus Corp., at Hybritech Inc., at Tularik Inc., or wherever you trace your biotech roots.
Hedgehog has been a household name in biotech circles for decades – both because the Sonic Hedgehog protein owes its whimsical name to a Sega video game character and because scientists have long pursued ways to target the Hedgehog pathway. Now Roche AG's Genentech unit has succeeded – with a little help from Curis Inc. – winning FDA approval of Erivedge (vismodegib) for advanced basal cell carcinoma.
