Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.'s decision last year to divest its R&D oncology assets ended up being Ignyta Inc.'s gain, with the latter picking up rights to four clinical and preclinical compounds in an asset purchase deal that triples the size of its pipeline and sets the stage for master protocol-designed trials of multiple targeted therapies. Read More
BOGOTA, Colombia – An administrative decision in Brazil canceled the patent for bevacizumab following a lawsuit filed by domestic generics manufacturers. The Brazilian Association of Industries of Generics (ProGenéricos in Portuguese), which represents the companies that distribute around 90 percent of the generics sold in Brazil, took on the patent at the source. Read More
Just three years out of the gate, privately held Scioderm Inc. is starting a phase III registration trial of lead compound Zorblisa (SD-101), its topical therapy to treat blisters and lesions resulting from the rare genetic connective tissue disorder epidermolysis bullosa (EB). Read More
DUBLIN – Danish biotech bellwether Genmab A/S and Swedish specialty pharma firm Pharmalink AB both added new preclinical projects to their respective pipelines Wednesday. Read More
The House Republicans' opening salvo in the fiscal 2016 budget war doesn't bode well for the stagnant research coffers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or the FDA's efforts to keep up with its growing mission. Read More
Women with advanced breast cancer given the Nektar Therapeutics Inc. drug NKTR-102 (etirinotecan pegol) after earlier cancer treatments lived just 2.1 months longer than those treated with a chemotherapy chosen by their doctors, missing the phase III study's primary endpoint. While subsets of patients fared better, the study failed to achieve statistical significance on primary and secondary endpoints. Read More
Sangui Biotech GmbH, of Witten, Germany, said that interim results of preclinical trials testing the hemoglobin-based product SBT102 against septic shock confirmed the statistical significance of interim results the company had communicated in November, when it reported that the candidate was able to improve the oxygen supply of vital organs during the life threatening final phase of sepsis. Read More
Nimbus Therapeutics Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., completed an oversubscribed $43 million series B financing led by Pfizer Venture Investments and Lightstone Ventures. All of the company's series A investors, including Atlas Venture, SR One, Lilly Ventures, and Bill Gates, also participated in the series B round. Read More
La Jolla Pharmaceutical Co., of San Diego, initiated a phase IIb trial of GCS-100 to treat advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) caused by diabetes. The double-blind, multicenter, placebo-controlled, randomized trial will evaluate the galectin-3 inhibitor in diabetic patients with stage 3b or 4 CKD. Read More
