The newest advertising blitz of caffeinated-drug company Starbucks comes in the form of encouraging readers to share their favorite fall moments, with the Pumpkin Spice Latte featuring prominently, in tweets that include the hashtag #itsfallwhen. Read More
The melancholy on the Geron Corp. conference call early Monday morning was palpable after the company disclosed its decision to halt the Phase II study of imetelstat in metastatic HER2-negative breast cancer after an unplanned interim analysis revealed a greater number of deaths in the treatment arm than the comparator arm. Read More
Zalicus Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., is immediately terminating its development program for Synavive after a Phase IIb trial in rheumatoid arthritis failed to show meaningful clinical benefit compared to prednisolone, the active glucocorticoid component of the drug. Read More
LONDON – TauRx Therapeutics Ltd. announced the start of a 180-patient Phase III trial of its tau aggregation inhibitor, LMTX, in Pick's disease, an early onset form of dementia that shows similar characteristics to Alzheimer's disease. Read More
• Regulus Therapeutics Inc., of La Jolla, Calif., set terms for its initial public offering (IPO), planning to raise $50 million by offering 4.5 million shares in the price range of $10 to $12. Read More
• Arsanis Biosciences GmbH, of Vienna, Austria, said it received two grants involving the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (Osterr. Forschungsforderungs GmbH, or FFG) to support development of monoclonal antibody drugs against nosocomial infections. Read More
• Palatin Technologies Inc., of Cranbury, N.J., said the last patient completed treatment in its Phase IIb study testing melanocortin agonist bremelanotide in female sexual dysfunction, and top-line data are expected in the first half of next quarter. The study enrolled about 400 premenopausal women, diagnosed with female sexual arousal disorder, hypoactive sexual desire disorder or both, and is designed to test subcutaneous doses of the drug intended for on-demand use. Read More
• ALK-Abello A/S, of Horsholm, Denmark, said it inked a co-promotion deal with MSD (known as Merck & Co. Inc., of Whitehouse Station, N.J., in the U.S. and Canada) for Grazax, a fast-dissolving, once-daily allergy immunotherapy for home treatment of grass pollen allergy in France. Read More
• Merck & Co. Inc., of Whitehouse Station, N.J., reported data from the two-month discontinuation phase of its 12-month study showing that patients who stopped taking insomnia drug suvorexant, following daily use for one year, experienced a return of their sleeping difficulties similar to those who received placebo, while adverse events were generally consistent with those reported during the 12-month study. Read More
• Evolva Holding SA, of Reinach, Switzerland, presented preclinical data showing that EV-035 demonstrated a broad spectrum of activity in in vitro and in vivo studies against bacteria, including those resistant to older generations of antibiotics. Read More
