Pfizer Inc.'s $5.2 billion acquisition of Anacor Pharmaceuticals Inc. to collect crisaborole sweeps one soldier off the atopic dermatitis (eczema) field, but plenty remain – with varying approaches and hard-to-handicap odds in what ISI Evercore analyst Mark Schoenebaum called a "not very developed" but potentially lucrative market. Read More

Mast Therapeutics Inc., of San Diego, reported interim results from an ongoing phase IIa study of AIR001 in patients with pulmonary hypertension associated with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction at the American Thoracic Society meeting in San Francisco. Read More

The latest in a string of clinical failures in the pancreatic cancer space, Aduro Biotech Inc.'s phase IIb miss was made more frustrating by a high dropout rate in the control arm that renders any readthrough to other trials testing LADD-based therapeutic CRS-207 nearly impossible. Read More

Reactions to a proposed compassionate use clearinghouse were mixed with one patient advocate calling it Frankenstein's monster offering false hope to patients and their families. Read More

BEIJING – Global communications and regulatory adaptations could help China's drug approval system continue to improve and better tap into the potential created by a trend toward more global simultaneous drug development, but future progress will depend on how "pretty" new regulations are put into practice. Read More

SUZHOU, China – China's economy is evolving rapidly and the new normal of slower growth has arrived. But don't tell the folks in China's life sciences industry, one of the few bright spots in an otherwise messy time of economic transition. The sector enjoyed what Greg Scott, founder of Chinabio LLC calls "explosive growth" last year. Read More

Heeding growing interest in the sway of tiny microorganisms over human health, climate change and other critical issues, a new National Microbiome Initiative launched by the White House kicked off Friday with a commitment of $121 million in federal dollars and more than $400 million in financial and in-kind contributions from private stakeholders to support interdisciplinary research, platform technology development and new applications in the young field. Read More

HONG KONG – A new study has demonstrated for the first time that nanomolar concentrations of a candidate cancer compound may also have therapeutic value in the field of stem cell therapy and tissue regeneration, Chinese researchers reported in the May 9, 2016, early online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Read More

Biostage Inc., of Holliston, Mass., said it has entered definitive agreements with institutional investors for an offering of shares of common stock with gross proceeds of approximately $5 million in an at-the-market (ATM) registered direct offering. Read More

Regenxbio Inc., of Rockville, Md., said it inked an exclusive global license agreement with Biogen Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., to develop gene therapy candidates based on its recombinant adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapy platform, dubbed NAV, to treat two rare genetic vision disorders. Read More