SAN FRANCISCO – Dealmaking in "really robust" 2014 easily outstripped the previous year, with 3,141 agreements nailed down that year, valued at about $382.7 billion, as compared to 2013's total of just over 2,100, worth about $158 billion, said Vinay Singh, senior deals analyst with Thomson Reuters Recap – "a third as many total deals, [with] well over twice as much" money involved. Read More
SAN FRANCISCO – Abbvie Inc.'s chief financial officer, Bill Chase, said competition for market share and the pricing saga playing out between its new hepatitis C virus (HCV) therapy, Viekira Pak (ombitasvir, paritaprevir and ritonavir tablets co-packaged with dasabuvir tablets) and Gilead Sciences Inc.'s Harvoni (sofosbuvir/ledipasvir) is "exactly what we expected," but that the media's focus on price has been much heavier than merited. Read More
SAN FRANCISCO – The word "revolution" is often overused in the biotech industry, but when it comes to the immuno-oncology sector it is an appropriate description. The science is transformative and has already led to several breakthrough – and potential blockbuster – cancer drugs. Read More
SAN FRANCISCO – Opening his presentation during the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference Wednesday morning, Hospira Inc. CEO Michael Ball zipped through updates on the firm's injectable and device businesses and focused the majority of his talk on the firm's efforts in biosimilars, a space that finally appears to be opening up in the U.S. Read More
Through large-scale sequencing and screening, researchers have gained new insights into the role – and sometimes the lack of a role – of the protein titin in heart disease. Read More
SHANGHAI – Hua Medicine Ltd. has received a nice endorsement from China's life science investors a month before the country's Spring Festival, closing $25 million in series B financing from some of the leading bio-focused venture capital firms, Frontline Bioventures and TF Capital. The latest financing was led by Ally Bridge Group, with all series A investors – Arch, Venrock, Fidelity, Wuxi Ventures and SAIL – chipping in for a second time. Read More
Neurophage Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., raised $10 million in a series D private equity financing from new investors, bringing the total round to $27 million. Read More
Dendreon Corp., of Seattle, said the company grew sales in four successive quarters for prostate cancer product Provenge (sipuleucel-T) and exceeded its revenue target for the first time. Read More
strong>Bellerophon Therapeutics LLC, of Hampton, N.J., completed enrollment of its PRESERVATION I trial of Bioabsorbable Cardiac Matrix (BCM), an implantable medical device studied to prevent congestive heart failure following an acute myocardial infarction. The treatment procedure has been completed in 303 patients at almost 90 sites in Australia, Europe, Israel and North America. Read More
Roche AG, of Basel, Switzerland, said it entered an agreement with Qiagen NV, of Venlo, the Netherlands, that includes a provision of nonexclusive licenses to recently granted Roche patents pertaining to the detection of mutations in the EGFR pathway, including in the KRAS gene. Read More
Astrazeneca plc, of London, said the PEGASUS-TIMI 54 study, a large-scale outcomes trial involving more than 21,000 patients, successfully met its primary efficacy endpoint. Read More
