NEW YORK – As attendees arrived at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel on Park Avenue Monday morning – the city sidewalks still slushy from a Sunday evening snowfall – it was clear that the annual BIO CEO & Investor meeting would begin with the same exuberance that pervaded the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco last month. Read More
NEW YORK – In the world of biotech clichés, “multiple shots on goal,” is one that shows up frequently in executive parlance during presentations, as they boast of their companies’ diverse pipelines, mostly hoping to assure potential investors and partners that the possibilities – and the risk – are spread among a handful of programs. Read More
The ability to seamlessly switch patients from an intravenous (I.V.) to an oral version of the same, broad-spectrum antibiotic could give Melinta Therapeutics Inc. a leg up in the field, and the company raised $70 million to help find out whether phase III-stage fluoroquinolone delafloxacin will make the grade. Read More
Bioblast Pharma Ltd. extended the 2014 initial public offering (IPO) window, filing an F-1 with the SEC seeking to raise up to $37.5 million and a listing on the Nasdaq Capital Market. The Tel Aviv firm filed as an emerging growth company under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012. Read More
Contradicting FDA reviews could have The Medicines Co. swinging when its cangrelor steps up to the plate at the Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee (CRDAC) meeting Wednesday. Read More
Eli Lilly and Co. entered the hearing loss field, by investing in a Series A round at Audion Therapeutics BV and supplying a series of compounds, including its γ-secretase inhibitors, to test their potential in hair cell regeneration. Read More
LONDON – Treatment with a specific humanized antibody may be able to prevent the formation of blood clots without increasing the risk of bleeding. If the initial promise of the therapy, which has so far been tested only in animals, is fulfilled, the antibody could one day replace heparin as the treatment of choice for prevention of unwanted blood clots. Read More
Five Prime Therapeutics Inc., of South San Francisco, said the underwriters exercised their full option to purchase an additional 450,000 shares of common stock, which was granted in connection with the company’s underwritten public offering of 3 million shares of common stock. Read More
Aegerion Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., said Health Canada has granted approved Juxtapid (lomitapide) as an adjunct to a low-fat diet and other lipid-lowering drugs, with or without low-density lipoprotein (LDL) apheresis, to reduce LDL-cholesterol in adult patients with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. Read More
Aduro Biotech Inc., of Berkeley, Calif., dosed the first patient in a randomized, controlled, multicenter phase IIb trial of its cancer immunotherapy candidates GVAX Pancreas and CRS-207. Read More
Merck & Co. Inc., of Whitehouse Station, N.J., and Samsung Bioepis Co. Ltd., of Seoul, South Korea, have expanded their collaboration with an agreement to develop, manufacture and commercialize MK-1293, an insulin glargine candidate for the treatment of patients with type I and type II diabetes. Read More
