Pfizer Inc. and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. each postponed earnings reports until Tuesday due to disruptions in transit and other preparations for Hurricane Sandy, a tropical storm of unprecedented size and strength complicated by a number of other meteorological events, including a major winter storm and a landfall perfectly timed for high tide. Read More
LONDON – Oxford BioTherapeutics Ltd. (OBT) has landed a "transformational" deal with Menarini, in which the Italian pharma company is to invest €800 million (US$1 billion) in a portfolio of five antibody and antibody-conjugate drugs discovered by OBT. Read More
Principia Biopharma Inc.'s $12.5 million in new money should get the company's lead compound into human trials, but the company is entertaining the idea of partners to advance other prospects arising from its platform that develops reversible, tightly binding covalent therapies. Read More
• Cellectis SA, of Paris, presented data at the European Society of Gene & Cell Therapy meeting in Versailles, France, showing that it can program cells from the immune system (T cells) to kill cancer cells. Cellectis' approach involves isolating cells from the immune systems of healthy patients and genetically programming them to attack cancer cells in sick patients. Read More
• Cytokinetics Inc., of South San Francisco, said it opened its Phase IIb BENEFIT-ALS (Blinded Evaluation of Neuromuscular Effects and Functional Improvement with Tirasemtiv in ALS) testing tirasemtiv, formerly CK-2017357, in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Read More
• AstraZeneca plc, of London, said it started a Phase III study, dubbed FALCON, to compare fulvestrant to Arimidex (anastrozole) in hormone therapy-naïve postmenopausal patients with hormone receptor-positive locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer. Read More
