Roughly 40 years after Bio-Response launched the first-ever biotech IPO, three companies priced IPOs on Friday, riding a wave of momentum that has put 2019 into second place for the most IPO money raised in a single year. Only 2018's record $10.7 billion is beyond this year's total: 54 global IPOs raising $7.98 billion.
Privately held Pepticom Ltd., of Jerusalem, completed a $5 million series A fundraising, allowing it to use artificial intelligence (AI) in helping research centers, pharma and agriculture companies discover advanced peptide-based drug candidates.
Building on the positive phase II results reported in June 2018 for pamrevlumab to treat pancreatic cancer, the first dose has been administered in Fibrogen Inc.'s phase III study in patients with unresectable locally advanced pancreatic cancer.
Despite Provention Bio Inc.'s phase IIa top-line data showing PRV-6527 in Crohn's disease did not differentiate from placebo, the company's stock was bumped back less than 1% on Tuesday as it continued to ride high after June's massive leap on heartening data about the company's type 1 diabetes trial of teplizumab.
It took newly launched Plexium Inc. CEO Kandaswamy (Swamy) Vijayan a few years to figure out where he needed to focus his creative energies. With an engineering background, he helped develop diagnostic tools. But he wanted to take the skill further.
It took Kandaswamy (Swamy) Vijayan, CEO of newly launched Plexium Inc., a few years to figure out where he needed to focus his creative energies. With an engineering background, he helped develop diagnostic tools. But he wanted to take the skill further. "For longest time, I thought diagnostics were the be all and end all," Vijayan told BioWorld MedTech.
It was at the constantly changing intersection of data science that Arsenal Biosciences Inc.'s CEO, Ken Drazan, found himself as he helped bring the company to life and to its $85 million series A fundraising.
With Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s acquisition of Achillion Pharmaceuticals Inc. for about $930 million up front, Alexion expands and diversifies its pipeline into familiar territory – treating complement-mediated diseases. Blue Bell, Pa.-based Achillion is developing oral, small-molecule factor D inhibitors for treating complement alternative pathway-mediated rare diseases, including paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria and C3 glomerulopathy.
Top-line data from Relmada Therapeutics Inc.'s phase II study of REL-1017 (dextromethadone) in patients with treatment-resistant depression caused the stock to more than double Tuesday, a great day on the market.
