Gout is an old-fashioned-sounding disease that many associate with aging. It is, however, a painful condition affecting 8.3 million people in the U.S., a minority of which achieve satisfactory treatment with the market-leading product, allopurinol, for reducing serum uric acid (sUA) levels. BioCryst Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s new Phase IIb top-line data showed that combining its investigational purine nucleoside phosphorlylate inhibitor, BCX4208, with a 300-mg dose of allopurinol could double the number of patients who achieve normal sUA levels. In the randomized, double-blinded, dose-response study, BCX4208 plus allopurinol was superior to allopurinol alone in patients with gout who had failed allopurinol alone. Read More
Although European scientists have long cast envious glances at the better funding and better facilities available to their U.S. counterparts, a new analysis by the European Medical Research Councils (EMRC) claimed that European biomedical research has overtaken that of the U.S. in volume terms, even though it lags behind the U.S. significantly in terms of spending. Read More
One of the goals of regenerative medicine is to provide patients with autologous cell transplants to replace their own failing cells. The way to get such cells is to first make patient-specific stem cells. And one way to make such stem cells is to reprogram an egg with the hypothetical patient's own DNA. Read More
The renin angiotensin system (RAS) is hardly a new discovery in biotech – previous work led to widely used drugs such as ACE inhibitors for treating blood pressure and congestive heart failure – but only in recent years has the function of a second RAS pathway come to the attention of drug developers. Read More
WASHINGTON – Voicing a sense of urgency, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg unveiled a blueprint Wednesday aimed at making the agency a part of the solution, rather than the problem, in promoting innovation in the biotech industry. Read More
Dyadic International Inc., of Jupiter, Fla., completed a private placement of $3 million in convertible subordinated secured promissory notes to five investors. Read More
Neurocrine Biosciences Inc., of San Diego, said it achieved its second milestone in a collaboration with Abbott, of Abbott Park, Ill., for elagolix and next-generation gonadotropin-releasing hormone receptor antagonists, triggering a $20 million payment. Read More
Halozyme Therapeutics Inc., of San Diego, began patient dosing in a Phase II trial with pegylated rHuPH20 (PEGPH20) in patients with Stage IV previously untreated pancreatic cancer. Read More
