Just weeks after the close of a flush third quarter for biotech fundraising, three more drug developers – Apellis Pharmaceuticals Inc., Inflarx NV and Genprex Inc. – are making the leap into the public market with IPOs, all on Nasdaq. Read More

Thanks to a managed access agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., of New York, the U.K.’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) announced that immunotherapy drug Opdivo (nivolumab) will be available within the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) for patients with head and neck cancer who have not responded to chemotherapy within six months and whose cancer has metastasized. Read More

Whether and to what extent the risk of diabetic retinopathy will figure into deliberations of Wednesday’s FDA panel on Novo Nordisk A/S’ semaglutide stood as one of the main questions as investors scanned briefing documents made public Monday. Read More

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells crossed the finish line as a cancer therapy, when the FDA approved Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel, formerly CTL-019, Novartis AG), in August. Read More

SHANGHAI – On June 1 of this year, China’s new Cybersecurity Law came into effect, tightening the government’s grip on the transfer and security of data collected in China. Now that the law is in place, industry regulators are expected to hammer out specific rules that will come out in 2018. Read More

Considering that Chicago isn’t exactly a breeding ground for biopharma, Exicure Inc. already had defied expectations by raising more than $42 million since its inception in 2011 as Aurasense Therapeutics LLC and attracting the attention of tech and business notables such as Microsoft Corp. co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates. Read More

Trillium Therapeutics Inc., of Toronto, presented preclinical and patient case study data for TTI-621 (SIRPa-IgG1 Fc), a CD47-blocking agent, at the EORTC CLTF meeting in London. TTI-621 blocked the CD47 signal in leukemic cells from patients with Sézary syndrome, a form of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Read More

Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics Inc., of Hackensack, N.J., said the first patients were enrolled in the phase III trial of stem cell therapy Nurown in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Read More

Intellipharmaceutics International Inc., of Toronto, closed its recent registered direct offering for gross proceeds of about $4 million. The company also issued to the investors unregistered warrants to purchase about 1.8 million common shares at an exercise price of $1.25 per share. Read More