Pfizer Inc., of New York, said findings from two pivotal phase III studies, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, showed that crisaborole topical ointment 2 percent (formerly AN2728) achieved statistically significant results on primary and secondary endpoints for the treatment of atopic dermatitis (AD) in children, ages 2 and up, and adults vs. vehicle ointment alone. Read More

Plex Pharmaceuticals Inc., of San Diego, said it received a $670,865 grant from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research through its Therapeutic Pipeline Program. Under that funding, Plex will employ its fragment-based screening technology combined with structure-based drug design to discover and develop brain-permeable drug candidates targeting two promising Parkinson's disease-modifying proteins, FK506 binding protein 12 (FKBP12) and FKBP52, which accelerate and promote the aggregation of alpha-synuclein, a hallmark of Parkinson's pathology. Read More

Ovascience Inc., of Waltham, Mass., named Harald F. Stock president and CEO, and appointed Michelle Dipp, the company's co-founder, executive chair of the board. Read More

Second Genome Inc., of South San Francisco, said SR One Ltd., the venture capital arm of Glaxosmithkline plc, of London, joined its series B financing, bringing the total round to $51 million. Read More

India's Central Drugs Standard Control Organization (CDSCO) is proposing a crackdown on industry delays in responding to its requests for additional data for drug applications. Read More

Scientific and ethical justifications for randomized clinical trials involving targeted cancer drugs are outdated and overlook the most significant players in those high stakes experiments – patients coping with an incurable illness. Read More

HONG KONG – A Korean study has identified a novel small-molecule chemotherapy that offers the potential to be an improved treatment option for patients with tumors having a DNA mismatch repair (MMR) deficiency, which do not respond to conventional chemotherapies. Research was published in the July 5, 2016, early online edition of Cancer Research. Read More

LONDON – GW Pharma plc has raised $252 million in an oversubscribed offering on Nasdaq to fund the launch and commercialization of Epidiolex, its cannabis-based treatment for rare and intractable forms of epilepsy. Read More

Bellicum Pharmaceuticals Inc. CEO Thomas Farrell told BioWorld Today that the snag, albeit short-term, met by Juno Therapeutics Inc. jolted some out of "perhaps a good deal of denial about safety as an issue" in chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy. Read More