SAN FRANCISCO – The mood heading into the start of the 33rd annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco that opens today will be decidedly upbeat. In fact, it will be hard for biopharma executives to stop smiling with the industry coming off a record year in terms of raising capital, performance on the capital markets and partnering and mergers and acquisitions. Read More
Argos Therapeutics Inc. shares (NASDAQ:ARGS) fell 32.3 percent to $6.51 Friday – dipping below the company's $8 February 2014 initial public offering price – after top-line data from a phase IIb study showed that AGS-004, the company's personalized immunotherapy for HIV, failed to reduce median viral load more than a placebo in HIV-infected patients. Read More
LONDON – Ampliphi Biosciences Corp. and its partner the U.S. Army are on the march to becoming the first to stage an FDA-approved trial of a bacteriophage antibiotic. Read More
Less than a month after partner Glaxosmithkline plc (GSK) offered good phase III news with the would-be blockbuster shingles therapy HZ/su exploiting Agenus Inc.'s QS-21 Stimulon adjuvant, Agenus disclosed a new arrangement with Incyte Corp. to investigate checkpoint modulators in onco-immunology, by way of a deal similar to – but much broader than – an earlier pact with Merck & Co. Inc. Read More
Perhaps expectations were overly optimistic, or more likely the road forward for emricasan may be significantly more arduous than Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. originally envisioned. Read More
Last week, policy-makers, researchers and vaccine developers met at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters to review the landscape of current and upcoming Ebola vaccine clinical trials. Read More
DUBLIN – Fountain Healthcare Partners raised €85 million (US$100 million) in a first closing of its second fund and has set its sights on a final target of €125 million. Read More
Polyphor Ltd., of Allschwil, Switzerland, signed a licensing agreement with Pari Pharma, of Starnberg, Germany, to use the Eflow technology nebulizer to administer POL6014, a highly potent and selective inhibitor of neutrophil elastase. Read More
Cerulean Pharma Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., entered an agreement with Hercules Technology Growth Capital Inc. for a term loan of up to $26 million and a private placement of $1 million of Cerulean common stock in the form of 135,501 unregistered shares at $7.38 apiece. Read More
Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp., of New York, said it completed a phase I study of TNX-201, which is being developed for episodic tension-type headache. In the single ascending-dose, placebo-controlled trial, Read More
Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd., of Tokyo, said the FDA approved Savaysa (edoxaban) tablets, a once-daily selective factor Xa-inhibitor, to reduce the risk of stroke and systemic embolism in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation. Read More
The gut is host to beneficial microbes by the pound, which are critical for good health. Simultaneously, however, the immune system needs to deal with a steady stream of pathogenic bacteria such as Salmonella and E. coli, and does so partly via inflammatory signals that should attack commensal and pathogenic bacteria alike. Read More
