LONDON – Braced for canceled classes after Typhoon Trami crossed west Japan overnight on Sunday, Kyoto University instead found itself swept up in a far more genial atmosphere, as news broke Monday that Tasuku Honjo, staff member since 1984, had won the 2018 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine. Read More
LONDON - Forbion Capital Partners announced the final close of its fourth fund, attracting €360 million (US$418 million) for life sciences investments in Europe and North America. Read More
Dragonfly Therapeutics Inc. CEO Bill Haney told BioWorld that his firm's deal with Merck & Co. Inc. provides "a pretty considerable up-front payment" and gives Merck the option to license exclusive worldwide intellectual property rights to products developed using the TriNKET natural killer (NK) cell technology platform against solid tumors for an undisclosed number of programs. Read More
"Encouraged," apparently, is not a word investors relish when it comes to trial results – even early phase I data – as Avrobio Inc. learned after disclosing findings on the first participants in an investigator-sponsored phase I study and company-sponsored phase II of ex vivo lentiviral (LV) gene therapy AVR-RD-01 in Fabry disease. The Cambridge, Mass.-based company, which priced its June IPO at $19 to raise $114.7 million, including overallotments, and hit a high of $53.70 last week, saw shares (NASDAQ:AVRO) give back more than half their value Monday, falling to $21.58 before closing at $25.13 for a loss of $26.74, or 51.6 percent. Read More
Velosbio Inc., a San Diego-based startup developing antibody-drug conjugates to treat blood cancers and solid tumors, has landed a $58 million series A financing co-led by Arix Bioscience plc and Sofinnova Ventures. Other investors included Pappas Ventures, Chiesi Ventures, Takeda Ventures Inc. and Decheng Capital. While the company has said little about its initial pipeline, the new financing is projected to help it complete a first investigational new drug application soon, Velosbio's CEO Dave Johnson told BioWorld. Read More
An accelerated approval for Insmed Inc.'s Arikayce (amikacin liposome inhalation suspension) has poised the company, within weeks, to offer the first and only FDA-approved therapy for refractory nontuberculous mycobacterial (NTM) lung disease caused by Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) in adults. The drug, which addresses a rare and often chronic infection that can cause irreversible lung damage, is also the first to be granted approval under the agency's limited population pathway for antibacterial and antifungal drugs (LPAD), created by the FDA to spur development of antibiotics for unmet medical needs. Read More
Alvotech ehf., of Iceland, and an independent sister company of U.S. pharmaceutical firm Alvogen Group Inc., recently joined hands with China's Changchun High & New Technology Industries Group Inc. to develop, manufacture and commercialize Alvotech's biosimilars in the Asian country. The collaboration will see a new joint venture with manufacturing capabilities in China's Jilin province, which will be equally funded by both companies. Read More
Although analyst forecasts ranged from exuberant to temperate, all agreed that approval of Libtayo (cemiplimab-rwlc, previously REGN-2810) marked a new chapter for longtime partners Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Sanofi SA. The anti-PD-1 sneaked under the third-quarter wire, a month ahead of its PDUFA date, as the first FDA-approved therapy to treat advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) or locally advanced CSCC in individuals who are not candidates for curative surgery or radiation. Read More
The U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) is partnering with Genentech, a subsidiary of Basel, Switzerland-based Roche Holding AG, to develop a portfolio of medical countermeasures (MCMs) that also have commercial uses. The partnership calls for BARDA to share development costs, have joint oversight, help determine which drugs to develop and collaborate on decisions about which products enter or leave the partnered portfolio. Read More
Anaptysbio Inc., of San Diego, said it closed its underwritten public offering of 2.53 million shares, including the exercise in full by the underwriters of their option to purchase an additional 330,000 shares, at $94.46 each. Gross proceeds are expected to be approximately $239 million. Read More
Kangstem Biotech Co. Ltd., of Seoul, selected Masthercell Global Inc., a subsidiary of Germantown, Md.-based Orgenesis Inc., as its contract manufacturing partner for the European clinical trials of Furestem-AD, a cell therapy designed to treat atopic dermatitis. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. Read More
