Biotech companies generated $5 billion in the first quarter of 2013, just 3 percent less than the $5. 15 billion raised in the first quarter last year. The heavy lifting for the period was carried out by public companies, which were responsible for 65 percent of the total. Read More
Analysts took as less serious one of two primary endpoints that fostamatinib, the oral spleen tyrosine kinase (syk) inhibitor for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), missed in Phase III trial, and focused skeptically instead on the successfully reached goal in the study, known as OSKIRA-1. Read More
Privately held Ambrx Inc. gained another partner for one of its signature technologies, attracting Tokyo-based Astellas Pharma Inc. to an oncology-focused discovery and development collaboration in antibody drug conjugates (ADCs). Read More
Receptos Inc. became the seventh U.S. biotech to file for an initial public offering (IPO) this year, taking advantage of the emerging growth company provision in the Jumpstart Our Business Start-ups Act and aiming to raise as much as $86.3 million to support clinical work in multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and allergic/immune-mediate disorders. Read More
• QLT Inc., of Vancouver, British Columbia, completed the sale of its punctal plug drug delivery system to Mati Therapeutics Inc. Mati was founded by QLT's former president and CEO, Robert Butchofsky. Read More
• Emergent BioSolutions Inc., of Rockville, Md., expanded the protocol for its ongoing Phase Ib, single-arm, open-label study (Protocol 16009) that is evaluating the safety and efficacy of TRU-016 in combination with rituximab in previously untreated patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Read More
• Pozen Inc., of Chapel Hill, N.C., disclosed results of a company-sponsored study at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy's 25th Annual Meeting and Expo on April 4. Read More
Researchers from Stanford University published new evidence to support the surprising notion that amyloid fibrils, best known as the likely culprits in Alzheimer's disease, can be beneficial in multiple sclerosis and other neuroinflammatory diseases. Read More
