Acetylon Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s $100 million up-front deal with Celgene Corp. for selective histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors includes an option to take over the company for at least $500 million more, in an agreement that includes milestone payments of as much as $1.1 billion: $250 million for regulatory goals, and $850 million for hitting sales targets. Read More
If the industry needed another sign that preclinical-stage firms are making a comeback as hot investment prospects – last week's upsized initial public offering by Agios Therapeutics Inc., for example, met with an impressive trading debut on Wall Street – privately held Atyr Pharma Inc. delivered more promising news Monday, disclosing an oversubscribed $49 million Series D round to support work on its rare disease pipeline. Read More
Start-up Meditope Biosciences Inc. tucked $3.6 million under its belt in a Series A funded by angel investors to advance its monoclonal antibody (MAb) linker technology. The Los Angeles-based biotech is advancing cancer therapeutics discovered at City of Hope, a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif. Read More
LONDON – Polytherics Ltd. raised £13.5 million (US$20.8 million) in a private round to fund the acquisition of antibody engineering specialist Antitope Ltd. and provide working capital to build on the enlarged company's portfolio of antibody development technologies. Read More
The FDA imposed a partial clinical hold on an ongoing Phase II study of Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s hepatitis C virus candidate, VX-135, due to observations of elevated liver enzymes in patients receiving a 400-mg dose of the drug in the trial. Read More
Axl and Mer are oncogenic receptor tyrosine kinases. That much is clear. "They transform cells, and they play a role in migration, invasion and metastasis," Sourav Ghosh told BioWorld Today. Read More
Biomarin Pharmaceutical Inc., of San Rafael, Calif., reported a GAAP net loss of $21.5 million, or 16 cents per diluted share, for the second quarter ending June 30 compared to GAAP net loss of $32 million, or 27 cents per diluted share, for the same period in 2012. Read More
• Furiex Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Morrisville, N.C., confirmed that Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., of Osaka, Japan, got a positive opinion from the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency for Vipidia (alogliptin), and fixed-dose combinations Vipdomet (alogliptin and metformin) and Incresync (alogliptin and pioglitazone) for the treatment of Type II diabetes patients who are uncontrolled on existing therapies. Read More
• Cerespir Inc., of New York, disclosed positive interim clinical results from the Phase II trial by Chiesi Farmaceutici SpA, of Parma, Italy, testing CHF 5074, a first-in-class small-molecule microglia modulator, in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Read More
• Astrazeneca plc, of London, and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., of New York, said the FDA acknowledged receipt of the new drug application resubmission for investigational drug dapagliflozin for the treatment of adults with Type II diabetes. Read More
• Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., of Osaka, Japan, unblinded the ELM-PC 5 Phase III study (C21005) of orteronel plus prednisone compared to placebo plus prednisone in patients with metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer that had progressed during or following chemotherapy based on the recommendation of the independent data monitoring committee. Read More
Scientists from the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center have described bispecific antibodies that were able to neutralize more than 100 HIV strains at very low concentrations, suggesting that such antibodies might be useful for either treatment of HIV-infected individuals or pre-exposure prophylaxis. Read More
