In a potential $450 million deal, MacroGenics Inc., has signed up the privately held French pharmaceutical company Servier as partner for MGA271, a first-in-class antibody targeting B7-H3, an antigen that is expressed in a long and growing list of solid tumors. Read More
WASHINGTON – With the nation's drug shortage crisis depriving patients of critical treatments and threatening the development of new drugs, lawmakers must address the root causes of the problem – government pricing and regulatory policies that have created a "race to the bottom," a House subcommittee was told. Read More
Merck KGaA has returned global rights to IMO-2055, a TLR9 agonist, as a cancer therapy to partner Idera Pharmaceuticals Inc. following the termination of their oncology collaboration. Read More
• Clovis Oncology Inc., of Boulder, Colo., said the underwriters of its initial public offering exercised their option to purchase an additional 700,000 shares of Clovis common stock to cover overallotments. J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC acted as joint book-running managers for the offering, with Leerink Swann LLC acting as co-manager. Read More
• Curis Inc., of Lexington, Mass., inked an agreement with yhe Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) to support ongoing development of its oral small-molecule dual Pi3 kinase and HDAC inhibitor CUDC-907 for B-cell lymphoma and multiple myeloma. LLS will fund approximately half of the direct costs of the development of CUDC-907, up to $4 million. Read More
• Cytokinetics Inc., of South San Francisco, reported data from the first cohort of an ongoing Phase II study of CK-2017357 in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), showing that the drug was well tolerated when dosed daily as a single agent for two weeks. Those data were presented at the International Symposium on ALS/MND in Sydney, Australia. Cytokinetics recently started the second cohort of the study, which is expected to test the drug in 24 ALS patients who are receiving riluzole. CK-2017357 is a selective fast skeletal muscle troponin complex activator. Read More
