CHICAGO – A week after he talked with BioWorld Today about his success in helping pharmaceutical firms backfill their dwindling pipelines with promising, early stage deals, Avalon Ventures partner Jay Lichter disclosed a multi-company arrangement designed to do just that in a big way for GlaxoSmithKline plc. Read More
CHICAGO – It wasn't all that long ago that orphan drugs were considered too small to devote valuable R&D resources on. As a consequence, they did not feature prominently on the product development radar screens of pharma or biotech companies. Read More
Clinical trials marking progress toward a broad-acting, all-oral regimen for treating hepatitis C were reported in The New England Journal of Medicine and at the International Liver Congress of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, this week. Read More
CHICAGO – Small biotechs, already smarting from the stingy venture capital (VC) market and cutbacks in government funding, are looking nervously over their shoulder at the increasingly cozy relationship between big pharmas and academic institutions. And well they should. Read More
CHICAGO – John Mendlein may not look like the typical biotech exec – the long hair and laid-back manner suggest he might be more at home catching a few waves rather than moderating a panel on orphan and rare diseases, as he did Tuesday morning at the BIO 2013 International Convention. Read More
CHICAGO – While companion diagnostics have been an aspirational goal for the biotech industry for a number of years, the development pipeline has been held up by strategic and technical pitfalls. Read More
CHICAGO – Getting through an FDA advisory committee is an oft-dreaded rite of passage for developers of novel drug candidates, and stories of disastrous adcoms have a tendency to circulate around the biopharma industry like urban myths. Read More
LONDON – TiGenix NV unveiled positive Phase IIa results for its Cx611 allogeneic stem cell therapy in the treatment of 53 rheumatoid arthritis patients whose disease was not responsive to disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDS) or biologics. Read More
• iBio Inc., of Newark, Del., priced a public offering of 8.925 million units at 48 cents each raising about $4.28 million. Each unit consists of one share of common stock and 0.4 of a warrant to purchase one share, with an exercise price of 53 cents per share. Read More
• Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., said it ended the first quarter with $242 million in cash, cash equivalents and securities, using about $93 million in net cash for operations. Read More
• Advanced Cell Technology Inc., of Marlborough, Mass., said the first subject in the third dosage cohort was injected with 150,000 human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-derived retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells in its European Phase I trial for Stargardt's macular dystrophy (SMD). Read More
• NanoBio Corp., of Ann Arbor, Mich., said its intramuscular nanoemulsion-adjuvanted respiratory syncytial virus vaccine was safe and highly effective in protecting cotton rats against RSV without causing enhanced disease. Read More
• Sucampo Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Bethesda, Md., said the FDA approved its prostone-based therapy Amitiza (lubiprostone) as the first oral treatment of opioid-induced constipation (OIC) in patients with chronic, noncancer pain. Read More
