>WASHINGTON – Irish firm Elan Corp. plc is the latest company snared by the Department of Justice (DOJ) for illegally marketing drug products, with the Dublin-based company agreeing to pay about $203.5 million to resolve criminal and civil charges of off-label promotion of its epilepsy drug Zonegran (zonisamide). Read More
An earlier lucrative licensing deal with Genentech Inc. helped Swiss biotech NovImmune SA to secure an additional $20.6 million Series B financing. The Genentech deal for rights to NovImmune's anti-Interleukin-17 (IL-17) antibody program, finalized in July, provided enough external validation to draw the interest of lead investor BZ Bank Aktiengesellschaft. The funds will be used to develop proof-of-concept data on two of NovImmune's compounds and complete validation of its antibody platform. Read More
Inspire Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Durham, N.C., said findings published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine showed that cystic fibrosis patients, age 5 and older, receiving inhaled denufosol had better lung exhalation rates than those in the placebo group at the end of 24 weeks in a Phase III trial. Read More
DiaGenic ASA, of Oslo, Norway, and Pfizer Inc., of New York, have signed an agreement for an explorative R&D collaboration to identify biomarkers in early stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD) using DiaGenic's patented gene expression technology and its blood samples from ongoing clinical studies. Read More
Shares of InterMune Inc. shot up a whopping 144.5 percent Friday on a positive opinion by the European Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) drug pirfenidone, a decision that came about two months earlier than expected and positions the company for a European approval in early 2011. Read More
Ventrus Biosciences Inc. got a trim instead of a haircut and came within a hair, relatively speaking, of hitting its moderate initial public offering (IPO) target. Read More
