Estimate-beating fourth-quarter earnings for Amgen Inc. pushed company shares about $7.95 higher to close at $167.53 on Friday as sales of its cholesterol treatment Repatha (evolocumab) rose and a closely watched phase III trial suggested that combining the antibody with optimized statin treatment could reduce the risk of heart attack and other CV events in patients with arterial plaque buildups. Read More
Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s chief financial officer, Mardi Dier, told BioWorld Today the deal with Healthcare Royalty Partners (HCRP) was "exactly what we planned to do" – add "part two" to the "part one" of nondilutive funding late last year, when the company signed a $50 million loan agreement with longtime partners Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. (BMS) and Pfizer Inc. for more resources to develop factor Xa inhibitor antidote Andexxa (andexanet alfa). Read More
DUBLIN – The "strong performance" of its second life sciences fund was key to Seroba Life Sciences raising a third. The Dublin-based venture capital firm has raised €100 million (US$108 million) in a first close, but it remains open to additional investments for much of this year. Read More
It is pretty much a cliché that the future of oncology lies in combination treatments, albeit a cliché with a lot of truth to it. Combinations, though, bring their own challenges. In many cases, efficacy and toxicity increase in lockstep, and in the context of clinical trial design, "endless possibilities" is a bug, not a feature. Read More
TAIPEI, Taiwan – Calling its recent FDA orphan designation for small-molecule drug CX-4945 in cholangiocarcinoma an important milestone in its development and regulatory strategy, 2012 startup Senhwa Biosciences Inc. enters 2017 with plans for an uplisting on the Taiwan stock exchange and hopes for restoring investor enthusiasm for Taiwan's biopharma sector. Read More
Neos Therapeutics Inc., of Grand Prairie, Texas, said it priced an underwritten public offering of 5 million shares of its common stock at $5 each for gross proceeds of $25 million. Read More
Asterias Biotherapeutics Inc., of Fremont, Calif., said it is extending the expiration date of certain warrants to purchase up to an aggregate of 3.3 million shares of series A common stock with a par value of $0.0001 per share. Read More
Neovacs SA, of Paris, said its independent data and safety monitoring board allowed the company to continue the phase IIb trial testing lead candidate IFNalpha Kinoid for the treatment of lupus. Read More
The response to stress is controlled by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and dysfunction of the HPA axis induced by chronic stress puts individuals at risk of a variety of psychiatric as well as physiological conditions. Read More
