When Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s Kynamro (mipomersen) was approved in January 2013 by the FDA for homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HoFH), the big question was whether the weekly injectable apolipoprotein B synthesis inhibitor could stand up against the daily pill from Aegerion Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s Juxtapid (lomitapide), a microsomal triglyceride transfer protein blocker for the same indication. Read More
Imago Biosciences Inc. seemed to materialize from thin air, on Halloween at that, with a $26.5 million series A financing led by Clarus Ventures LLC, with participation from an impressive syndicate that included Frazier Healthcare, Amgen Ventures and Merck Research Labs Venture Fund. Read More
DUBLIN – Apogenix GmbH entered its first big pharma licensing deal, a pact with Abbvie Inc., on a preclinical TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) receptor agonist, APG-880, in various cancer indications. Read More
The fight against Ebola is complicated in many ways. To date, one of them has been that the most common strains of laboratory mice don't get Ebola. Read More
LONDON – Dundee University spinout Exscientia Ltd. has signed a $4.8 million drug discovery deal with Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc. to design bi-specific small molecules for treating psychiatric disorders. Read More
CLEVELAND — Five years ago the paradigm between diagnostic firms and pharmaceutical companies was quite different. In an exclusive interview during the recent Cleveland Clinic Medical Innovation Summit and working off the backdrop of this year's theme, "Now it's personal, Cancer Treatment and Personalized Medicine," Myriad Genetics Inc.'s president, Mark Capone, spoke of the broadening reach of diagnostic solutions. Read More
CLEVELAND – The Cleveland Clinic unveiled the wildly popular Top 10 list of medical innovations at the recent Medical Innovations Summit. The list of breakthrough therapies and devices, in its 9th year at the event, was selected by a panel of Cleveland Clinic physicians and scientists. Read More
Chimerix Inc., of Durham, N.C., priced an underwritten public offering of 3.65 million shares of its common stock at a price of $29 per share, for gross proceeds of $105.9 million. The offering is expected to close on or about Nov. 5. Chimerix anticipates using the net proceeds to fund its research and development efforts and for general corporate purposes, including working capital. Read More
Profectus Biosciences Inc., of Baltimore, said the Department of Defense's Medical Countermeasure Systems-Joint Vaccine Acquisition Program has granted it a $9.5 million contract to support manufacturing and phase I testing of its trivalent and monovalent vaccines for Ebola and Marburg viruses. Read More
Seattle Genetics Inc., of Bothell, Wash., beat predicted sales in the third quarter of Adcetris (brentuximab vedotin) for Hodgkin lymphoma and systemic anaplastic large-cell lymphoma, chalking up $48.2 million. The company showed quarter-over-quarter growth of 11 percent. Read More
Avanir Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Aliso Viejo, Calif., said results from TARGET, its pivotal phase III study of AVP-825 22 mg, published in the January 2015 issue of Headache, show that the investigational drug-device combo – low-dose sumatripan delivered intranasally using the Breath Powered technology – resulted in relief of moderate or severe migraine headache as quickly as 15 minutes (19.4 percent AVP-825 vs. 14.4 percent placebo device). Read More
Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd., of Tokyo. said the FDA's Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee voted 9-1 to recommend approval of once-daily Savaysa (edoxaban) 60 mg to reduce the risk of stroke and systemic embolic events (SEE) in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF). Read More
Two separate teams, one from the Sloan Kettering Institute for Cancer Research and Cornell University and another from Stanford University, have made strides in developing nanoparticles, or NPs, for imaging. Read More
