The need to rein in the escalating cost of health care in the U.S. collided Wednesday with concerns about separation of powers, the objectivity of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and the scope and real-world impact of a proposed Medicare Part B drug demonstration project during a House Budget Committee hearing on how such projects are scored for savings. Read More

Pipeline growth, clinical development and manufacturing are all slated for a boost from a $474 million equity financing for Moderna Therapeutics Inc., a substantial follow-on to the messenger RNA (mRNA) specialist's monster $450 million series C round in January 2015 – a sum it has yet to even touch, CEO Stéphane Bancel told BioWorld Today. Read More

Neurophage Pharmaceuticals Inc. re-branded itself as Proclara Biosciences as it hauled in a $47 million series E and moved lead candidate, NPT088, into a phase Ib trial in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Read More

By inhibiting carotid bodies, the smallest organ in the human body, researchers have been able to lower blood pressure in several different animal models. In previous work, the team had shown that carotid body hyperactivity played a role in slightly more than half of patients with hypertension, and developed a way to identify individuals who were likely to respond to carotid body modulation. Read More

LONDON – G20 group leaders meeting in Hangzhou, China, reached a united front on the next steps to be taken to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR), calling for work to address the market failure that leads to underinvestment in research and development into new antibiotics and diagnostics by pharma and med-tech companies. Read More

Tarix Orphan LLC, of Cambridge, Mass., said the company received orphan drug status from the FDA for TXA127 as a potential treatment for the rare genetic skin disorder recessive dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa. Read More

Cytrx Corp., of Los Angeles, reached the enrollment target of 132 patients in the global phase IIb trial of aldoxorubicin in patients with previously treated small-cell lung cancer. Read More