Biomx Ltd., an Israeli microbiome company developing customized phage therapies, has closed a $32 million series B equity financing it said will be used primarily to advance its acne and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) candidates to the clinic. BX-001, the acne program for which it has secured a global cosmetics-focused partner, is expected to enter a phase I trial in the second half of this year with an expected readout by year-end ahead of an additional trial in 2020. It will be followed by trials for the company's IBD program, BX-002, toward the end of 2020, Biomx CEO Jonathan Solomon told BioWorld. Read More
The issues surrounding access to drugs and devices is often invisible to Medicare beneficiaries, but a new report by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services expects Medicare spending to jump 7.1 percent in the current year. That increase seems certain to apply price pressure across the health care spectrum, including on makers of drugs, medical devices and diagnostics, at a time when price is a particularly salient consideration in health care. Read More
DUBLIN – Interleukin-15 (IL-15) inhibition is back on the menu. Calypso Biotech BV closed a €20 million (US$22.7 million) series A round to take what it claims is a best-in-class IL-15 antagonist, CALY-002, into clinical development for autoimmune disease. Read More
HONG KONG – Japan's Hitachi Chemical Co. Ltd. plans to acquire the entire share float of Apceth Biopharma GmbH, a contract manufacturing organization (CMO), spending about €75.5 million or ¥9.4 billion (US$85.2 million) on the German company's stock. Read More
HONG KONG – Chinese cancer diagnosis firm Burning Rock Biotech has closed a series C financing round, pocketing ¥850 million (US$125.5 million). The company said the funds will help it step up its game in cancer genetic testing in China, especially with technology under development that enables early cancer detection. Read More
LONDON – A new phase in cell therapy is opening up with the launch of transdifferentiation specialist Mogrify Ltd., a company laying claim to technology that will allow the direct conversion of adult cells to other cell types without first reprogramming them to progenitors or pluripotent stem cells. Read More
Ovid Therapeutics Inc., of New York, priced underwritten public offerings of 12.5 million shares of its common stock and 2,500 shares of its nonvoting series A convertible preferred stock. The public offering price of each share of common stock is $2 and the public offering price of each share of series A stock is $2,000. Read More
The U.S. Supreme Court this week erected a guardrail for state efforts to tame prescription drug prices when it left standing last year's Fourth Circuit ruling that struck down Maryland's law aimed at price gouging for generic drugs. Read More
Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc., of Novato, Calif., reported $16.3 million in total revenue for the fourth quarter of 2018, recognizing $11.6 million in total revenue for Crysvita (burosumab-twza), the first and only FDA-approved treatment for X-linked hypophosphatemia. Read More
VBL Therapeutics Inc., of Tel Aviv, Israel, said it was awarded a nondilutive grant exceeding ILS10 million (US$2.9 million) by the Israel Innovation Authority to support continued development of lead candidate VB-111, a targeted CD95/TNF receptor modulator gene therapy. Read More
