The first biopharma initial public offering (IPO) to take place on a European exchange in 2014 was also the biggest. Oxford, UK-based Circassia Pharmaceuticals plc raised £202 million (US$313.2 million) on March 13, which set a benchmark that was not beaten on either side of the Atlantic. Read More
Royalty deals "continue to grow, year in and year out," said Todd Davis, founding managing director of Healthcare Royalty (HC Royalty) Partners, which in October closed on Fund III, with $1.5 billion available for investing in an environment where – unlike during the correction that followed 2008 – "capital is in prolific supply." Read More
Symic Biomedical Inc.'s $15 million series A round will let the San Francisco-based firm advance its two preclinical lead programs, as partner-shopping begins for more efforts that deploy proteoglycan-like therapies. Read More
LONDON – Arguments over proposed new European data protection laws, which could have potentially devastating consequences for clinical and epidemiological research, will come to a head over the next few months as the final text of the legislation is agreed by the European Parliament, the European Council and the EC. Read More
Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, joyous Kwanzaa. Whatever you celebrated, the venture capitalists gave the biopharma industry a mighty large gift in 2014. Investments in private drug companies tracked by BioWorld Snapshots rounded out the year at $3.85 billion, up substantially from the $2.6 billion in 2013 in the U.S. Read More
TOKYO – In the nearly 12 years since the completion of the Human Genome Project, next-generation sequencing methods have made genome sequencing both faster and cheaper, leading to massive increases in the numbers of individuals who can be sequenced. Read More
Knight Therapeutics Inc., of Montreal, inked a strategic partnership with Neuraxon Inc., of Mississauga, Ontario, to commercialize products in development by Neuraxon in Canada, Israel, South Africa and Russia. Knight will pay approximately $1.75 million in cash and provide additional funding to develop the products. Read More
Eli Lilly and Co., of Indianapolis, completed the acquisition of Novartis Animal Health, designed to bolster the position of Lilly's Elanco animal health division. Read More
A team from the University of California at San Diego has shown that skin fat cells play a role in fighting skin infections. Previous research had hinted that fat cells might have immunological roles, but the mechanisms had remained unclear. Read More
