LONDON – Affimed Therapeutics AG closed a €15.5 million (US$20 million) Series D funding round, enabling it to advance clinical development of its two leading second-generation TandAb bispecific antibodies. Read More
• Cellerant Therapeutics Inc., of San Carlos, Calif., said it was awarded a Small Business Innovation Research Phase I contract and a Phase II option from the National Cancer Institute valued up to about $1.7 billion. Read More
• Isconova AB, of Uppsala, Sweden, said its partner, the Jenner Institute at Oxford University, received approval from the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to start a Phase I study of a malaria vaccine candidate containing Isconova's adjuvant Matrix-M. Read More
Ardelyx Inc.'s goal of landing a partnership in 2012 panned out Monday, with the Fremont, Calif.-based company inking a potential $272.5 million deal with AstraZeneca for rights to its NHE3 inhibitor program, including Phase II-ready compound RDX5791. Read More
President Obama has signed into law the SAFE DOSES Act, a law that will increase penalties for prescription drug crimes like robbing pharmacies and medical product cargo. Medical cargo theft has increased as organized crime networks target and sell those products on the black market. Read More
Fibrocell Science Inc. wants to use $45 million from a private placement to reach more customers with LaViv (azficel-T), the personalized wrinkle therapy that harvests a sample of the patient's own cells by way of a skin-punch behind the ear, expands their collagen-making fibroblasts in the laboratory, and returns them by injection to nasolabial folds. Read More
The FDA's decision last week that an approved generic bupropion wasn't comparable to GlaxoSmithKline plc's antidepressant Wellbutrin XL 300 mg (bupropion) raises questions about the hurdles biosimilar developers may face along the new regulatory path. Read More
BRUSSELS – The smooth sounds of Marvin Gaye's '80s classic 'Sexual Healing' greeted delegates filing in for the opening keynote session at BioPartnering Future Europe meeting at the Square Brussels Meeting Centre Monday. Read More
• Grifols SA, of Barcelona, Spain, said the first patient was enrolled and dosed in a Phase II study testing Alpha-1 HC aerosol in cystic fibrosis. Read More
