Immage Biotherapeutics Corp., of Bethesda, Md., said it started a repeat toxicology study for lead candidate IMT-001 to verify the results from the previously conducted toxicology experiments. Read More

Urogen Pharma Ltd., of Ra’anana, Israel, priced an upsized IPO of about 4.5 million shares at $13 apiece, the midpoint of its proposed range, for aggregate gross proceeds of about $58.2 million. Read More

Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Inc., of Boston, reported first-quarter net U.S. Auryxia (ferric citrate) sales of $10.5 million, compared to $5.6 million in the first quarter of 2016, with the number of prescriptions for the hyperphosphatemia drug increasing about 72 percent year over year. Read More

The World Health Organization (WHO) is rolling out several plans to jumpstart biosimilar competition to make biologic cancer treatments more accessible in low- and middle-income countries. At the top of the agenda is a pilot project to prequalify biosimilars referencing biologics on the WHO Essential Medicines List. Read More

About three months after taking the wraps off a $41 million mezzanine financing, Rhythm Pharmaceuticals Inc. is kicking off a pivotal trial of its lead candidate, setmelanotide, for an ultra-rare genetic obesity disorder. The melanocortin-4 (MC4) receptor agonist will be tested in an open-label, single-arm phase III study evaluating its efficacy for the treatment of pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) deficiency obesity, a condition estimated to affect between 100 and 500 patients in the U.S. Read More

Growth control is critical for individual organs as well as whole organisms. That is certainly true for the brain, where pruning of neurons and of connections between them is critical to its function. Read More

LONDON – Vivet Therapeutics has raised $41 million in a series A round to fund development of liver-targeted gene therapies for treating inherited metabolic disorders. Read More

DUBLIN – Shares in Poxel SA opened Thursday at €10.22 (US$11.21) on the Euronext exchange in Paris, up 56 percent on the previous close, in response to positive top-line data from a phase IIb trial in Japan of imeglimin in 299 patients with type 2 diabetes. Read More

Argenx NV, of Breda, the Netherlands, said it has recruited 50 percent of the myasthenia gravis patients in the phase II proof-of-concept study of ARGX-113, which consists of the Fc-portion of an antibody that has been modified by the company’s Abdeg technology to increase its affinity for FcRn beyond that of normal IgG antibodies. Read More