Idera Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., said it completed the phase I portion of the phase I/II trial testing intratumoral IMO-2125, an agonist of TLR9, in combination with Yervoy (ipilimumab, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.) in anti-PD-1-refractory metastatic melanoma. Read More
Tonix Pharmaceuticals Holding Corp., of New York, said that following a meeting with the FDA in March regarding TNX-102 SL (cyclobenzaprine), the company's phase III post-traumatic stress disorder treatment candidate, the agency confirmed that a single-study new drug application (NDA) approval could be possible. Read More
Urogen Pharma Ltd., of Raanana, Israel, has filed its form F-1 with the SEC to raise up to $50 million in an IPO and has applied to have its shares listed on Nasdaq under the symbol URGN. Read More
Few of the top biopharma companies are willing to commit to the annual single-digit percentage U.S. price increase cap Allergan plc's CEO pledged last year, according to a new Public Citizen survey. Read More
Frequency Therapeutics Inc., a company working to develop a progenitor cell-activating hearing restoration therapy, has closed a $32 million series A financing led by Cobro Ventures. Read More
TOKYO – Peptidream Inc.'s stock, which had surged on Monday after inking a $1 billion-plus collaboration agreement, might have failed to keep the momentum going on Tuesday. But the news of a multitarget discovery and optimization collaboration agreement with U.S.-based Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. underscored the growth of the company, which now has 17 funded discovery collaboration deals. (See BioWorld Today, April 10, 2017.) Read More
PERTH, Australia – Melbourne-based Opthea Ltd.'s recent A$45 million (US$33.7 million) equity financing will go toward expanding clinical development of its VEGF-C/D trap therapy candidate, OPT-302, for wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic macular edema (DME), aiming to prove additive benefit to existing VEGF-A treatments. Read More
HONG KONG – In a country where just seven new oncology drugs were introduced in the last five years, the recent approval of Apac Biotech Pvt. Ltd.'s first-of-its-kind autoimmune therapy marked a significant step forward. Read More
Cirius Therapeutics Inc. (previously Octeta Therapeutics LLC) completed a series A financing of up to $40 million – drawing down $30 million in the initial tranche, according to an SEC filing – in a round that was co-led by Frazier Healthcare Partners and Novo A/S. Read More
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicines (NAS) issued a call for action to strengthen research integrity and address the fact that much published research in fields including biomedical science and psychology is not reproducible. Read More
"It's a lab-ready system – that's really critical," Geraldine Hamilton, president and chief scientific officer of Emulate Inc., told BioWorld Today, detailing the firm's cooperative research and development agreement with the FDA for use of the Boston-based firm's Organs-on-Chips technology, which will be placed "in [the FDA's] lab, so they can get first-hand experience" with it. Read More
