Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc. CEO Emil Kakkis said his company seized "an opportune moment" to enter gene therapy via the cash counter-offer for Dimension Therapeutics Inc. at $5.50 per share, or about $138 million, stacking the proposal against last month's all-stock bid valued at around $110 million by Regenxbio Inc. Read More
Cytokinetics Inc., of South San Francisco, reported additional results from its phase II Chronic Oral Study of Myosin Activation to Increase Contractility in Heart Failure (COSMIC-HF) trial testing omecamtiv mecarbil in 448 patients with chronic heart failure and left ventricular systolic dysfunction at the Heart Failure Society of America Scientific Meeting in Dallas. Read More
A pivotal trial comparing lefamulin, Nabriva Therapeutics plc's antibiotic for patients with community-acquired bacterial pneumonia (CABP), to the standard-of-care treatment, moxifloxacin, found it noninferior to the well-known quinolone, sparking new confidence in the Sandoz GmbH spinout as it heads from the now completed I.V.-to-oral LEAP 1 study into the all-oral LEAP 2 trial, top-line results of which are expected during spring of 2018. Read More
Startup Lifemine Therapeutics Inc. followed up its $5 million seed round, quietly raised last year, with a $55 million series A led by Wuxi Healthcare Ventures, which was joined by Foresite Capital, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Arch Ventures, Boyu Capital, Blue Pool Capital, Merck Ventures and Alexandria Venture Investments. Co-founded by Harvard Medical School professor, serial entrepreneur and investor Gregory Verdine, who serves as president, CEO and chief scientific officer, Lifemine is seeking to scale the genomic discovery of drugs from eukaryotic microbes, or fungi, by combining genomics with artificial intelligence and synthetic biology. Read More
DUBLIN – Shares in Thrombogenics NV rose 16 percent Monday on news that the Alcon unit of Novartis AG was handing back ex-U.S. rights to Jetrea (ocriplasmin), while also providing a cash payment of €53.7 million (US$64.2 million) and an equity investment of €10 million to the Leuven, Belgium-based biotech. Read More
LONDON – The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is to invest $40 million in Immunocore Ltd., in a move that will take the company's T-cell receptor platform beyond the current focus in cancer and into the treatment of infectious diseases, and in particular HIV and tuberculosis (TB). Read More
Neuronal epigenetics specialist Rodin Therapeutics Inc. has completed a $27 million financing that will fund its soon-to-be-chosen lead histone deacetylase 2 (HDAC2) inhibitor through a phase Ib proof-of-concept study in Alzheimer's disease (AD). A multimillion-dollar R&D and option deal it struck with Biogen Inc., however, is dead, terminated by mutual agreement, Rodin's president and CEO, Adam Rosenberg, told BioWorld. Read More
Deciphera Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Waltham, Mass., filed form S-1A setting terms for its IPO to raise $100 million by selling 6.25 million shares priced between $15 and $17 per share of common stock. Lead product DCC-2618, in an ongoing phase I trial in patients with advanced malignancies, is designed to inhibit the full spectrum of mutant or amplified KIT and PDGFR-alpha kinases that drive cancers such as gastrointestinal stromal tumors, or GIST. Read More
Theralase Technologies Inc., of Toronto, demonstrated 24-month long-term stability of its photodynamic cancer compound, TLD-1433. The purity of the drug changed less than 1.7 percent during the 24-month test. Read More
