DUBLIN – In a final flourish to its first year of trading, Idorsia Ltd., the Swiss firm spun out of Actelion Ltd., banked a massive $230 million milestone as Johnson & Johnson Co. pulled the trigger on an option to co-develop its phase II hypertension drug aprocitentan (ACT-132577). Read More

Zynerba Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Devon, Pa., reported data from the phase II STAR 1 (Synthetic Transdermal Cannabidiol for the Treatment of Epilepsy) trial and ongoing STAR 2 18-month open-label extension study testing ZYN002, a cannabidiol transdermal gel, in patients with focal seizures at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Epilepsy Society in Washington. Read More

LONDON – GW Pharma plc's Epidiolex is in the spotlight at the American Epilepsy annual conference in Washington this week as the company waits to hear if the FDA will accept the NDA in Dravet and Lennox-Gastaut syndromes and physicians report positive effects of the cannabis-derived drug in other forms of refractory epilepsy. Read More

HONG KONG – Astellas Pharma Inc. is exercising its rights in a previous partnership agreement to acquire its R&D collaborator Mitobridge Inc. for $450 million. Read More

LONDON – Allecra Therapeutics GmbH closed a €9 million (US$10.7 million) first tranche of a series C round, enabling it to fund phase III development of AAI-101 in the treatment of serious hospital-acquired gram-negative infections. Read More

After coming off a slow third quarter, where 10 biopharma companies completed their IPOs in the U.S., collectively raising just over $1 billion, the U.S. IPO market has picked up once again. Already, as we near the end of the fourth quarter, 10 biopharma companies have graduated to the public ranks on U.S. exchanges collectively raising over $1 billion. Read More

Trillium Therapeutics Inc., of Toronto, said it closed its non-brokered private placement of 1.95 million common shares and 400,000 series II non-voting convertible first preferred shares at $8.50 per share for gross proceeds of $19.9 million. Read More

Biopharmx Corp., of Menlo Park, Calif., said it will present research suggesting that BPX-01, a topical gel formulation of minocycline, may exhibit relevant antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties for the treatment of acne at a conference hosted by the American Society for Cell Biology and European Molecular Biology Organization in Philadelphia. Read More