Eli Lilly and Co. is tapping China's Innovent Biologics Inc. to develop and manufacture a strategic portfolio of potential cancer therapies in one of the largest biotech collaborations between a multinational and a domestic drugmaker in China to date.
Less than a year after joining Nasdaq through a merger, Assembly Biosciences Inc. is tapping keen interest in the science behind its potentially curative preclinical hepatitis B virus (HBV) and Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea (CDAD) programs through a $75 million public offering that will carry it well into 2017 or beyond.
Women with advanced breast cancer given the Nektar Therapeutics Inc. drug NKTR-102 (etirinotecan pegol) after earlier cancer treatments lived just 2.1 months longer than those treated with a chemotherapy chosen by their doctors, missing the phase III study's primary endpoint. While subsets of patients fared better, the study failed to achieve statistical significance on primary and secondary endpoints.
A cholesterol-lowering pill from Esperion Therapeutics Inc., ETC-1002 (bempedoic acid), significantly reduced LDL-cholesterol levels vs. placebo in a phase IIb study of patients with hypercholesterolemia on stable statin therapy, answering a key question for potential partners ahead of a planned phase III study later this year targeting statin-intolerant patients.
Nantworks Inc. and Sorrento Therapeutics Inc. have expanded their ongoing collaboration with a deal to discover and develop cancer immunotherapies derived from Sorrento's G-MAB library against Nantworks-identified neoepitopes of tumor-specific antigens drawn from its growing body of genomic and proteomic data.
Betting on the restorative power of young blood to reverse cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease and other central nervous system disorders, Grifols SA is taking a 45 percent stake in Stanford University spinout Alkahest Inc.
Neuralstem Inc. shares (NYSE:CUR) crumpled on Thursday, falling 36.6 percent in heavy trading to close at $2.37 as investors mulled top-line data from a phase II dose-escalation trial of NSI-566, the company's experimental neural stem cell therapy for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Sucampo Pharmaceuticals Inc. is returning to R-Tech Ueno Ltd. all licenses for the eye drug unoprostone isopropyl in the wake of a phase III study in which the drug failed to meet its primary endpoint of improving mean retinal sensitivity in people with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) vs. placebo with statistical significance.
Graybug Inc., a spinout of Johns Hopkins University's Wilmer Eye Institute that's developing an experimental microparticle drug for wet age-related macular degeneration, has closed a $1.74 million series A2 financing to help advance a preclinical drug and further prove its sustained-release technology.
Sucampo Pharmaceuticals Inc. is returning to R-Tech Ueno Ltd. all licenses for the eye drug unoprostone isopropyl in the wake of a phase III study in which the drug failed to meet its primary endpoint of improving mean retinal sensitivity in people with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) vs. a placebo with statistical significance.
