Frank Vinluan
Xconomy Editor Frank Vinluan is a business journalist with experience covering technology and life sciences. Based in Raleigh, he was a staff writer at the Triangle Business Journal covering technology, biotechnology and energy before joining MedCityNews.com as North Carolina bureau chief. Prior to moving to North Carolina’s Research Triangle in 2007 he held business reporting positions at The Des Moines Register and The Seattle Times.
Recent posts
Cancer research has revealed proteins known to play a role in the disease, but with no known way of stopping what they do. In pharmaceutical parlance, they’re “undruggable.”
Revolution Medicines is... Read more »
Perhaps the most talked-about news at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference this week was a new startup that launched with $200 million and an ambitious claim that its first drug would... Read more »
Neon Therapeutics closed 2019 by curtailing its cancer vaccine programs and laying off 24 percent of its workforce, part of a corporate restructuring aimed at finding a new path for the... Read more »
Emendo Biotherapeutics, a company aiming to apply CRISPR gene editing to a wider range of genetic diseases, has raised $61 million in financing.
The Series B round was led by AnGes,... Read more »
[Updated 1/15/2020, 8:51 a.m. See below.] As the nation grapples with the ongoing opioid crisis, an FDA advisory panel on Tuesday unanimously voted against recommending approval of a Nektar... Read more »
Scan the landscape of experimental medicines in development today and you’ll spot Schrödinger’s handiwork. The company’s software has helped discover compounds that are now advancing in the pipelines of several drug... Read more »
Two weeks after MorphoSys filed for FDA review of its experimental treatment for a form of lymphoma, the company has struck a deal with Incyte to further develop and commercialize the... Read more »
JP Morgan’s annual healthcare conference convenes in San Francisco this week and Generation Bio CEO Geoff McDonough is betting gene therapy will be among the discussion topics. While such therapies now... Read more »
Eli Lilly has agreed to acquire dermatology drug developer Dermira and its late-stage atopic dermatitis drug for $1.1 billion.
Lilly (NYSE: LLY) will pay $18.75 per share, a 2.2 percent... Read more »
[Updated 2:42 p.m. See below.] The next neuroscience drug that joins Biogen’s pipeline might come from the research of startup CAMP4 Therapeutics.
The two Cambridge, MA-based companies are starting... Read more »
Solid Biosciences is slashing its workforce, including two top executives, in order to devote the company’s remaining resources to its experimental gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
The corporate restructuring announced... Read more »
Food gurus tout the benefits of eating spinach and kale, but some people are better off leaving them on the plate. A molecule in these leafy greens contributes to hyperoxaluria, a... Read more »
Apellis Pharmaceuticals wants to offer patients who have an ultra-rare blood disease another treatment option. The drug developer Tuesday revealed late-stage clinical trial data suggesting its experimental therapy works better than... Read more »
Cancer research is leading some companies to molecular targets that have eluded new medicines. Phase 1-ready biotech Black Diamond Therapeutics hopes its approach to such cancer targets leads it to the... Read more »
The KRAS gene has become a hot target for cancer research for a growing number of drug developers. Merck, which is already testing a KRAS vaccine candidate, is now spreading its... Read more »
In the week leading up to Christmas, six drugs won FDA approvals. The decisions covered insomnia, migraine, and several different forms of cancer.
The FDA’s final tally for the year totaled... Read more »
Intrexon has spent two decades designing and building DNA sequences for applications in healthcare, food, energy, and the environment. Going forward, the synthetic biology company will focus exclusively on human health... Read more »
[Updated 12/20/19, 2:51 p.m. See below.] Turnstone Biologics has yet to test its engineered viruses in cancer patients but Takeda Pharmaceutical sees enough promise in the technology to pay... Read more »
Zafgen stumbled in clinical trials testing its experimental therapies for metabolic diseases. Going forward, it will have a new name, new management, and a mitochondrial disorder drug from another company.
Boston-based... Read more »
Huntington’s disease drug research has focused mainly on the genetic roots of the rare neurodegenerative disorder. Triplet Therapeutics is taking a different tack by targeting a DNA repair mechanism gone awry,... Read more »
