Frank Vinluan
Frank is a business journalist with more than a decade of experience covering various aspects of 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. Frank has a bachelor’s degree in history from Carleton College and a master’s degree in public affairs reporting from the University of Illinois Springfield.
Recent posts
Cells have a built-in way of breaking down damaged or unneeded proteins. Kymera Therapeutics is trying to harness this process as a therapy—using it to get rid of disease-causing proteins. As... Read more »
Each new technology has a story behind it. On Dec. 5, our Xchange Forum will offer a behind-the-scenes look at how some of them aim to transform healthcare.
Xconomy’s San Francisco... Read more »
Treatments for patients who have atrial fibrillation (AF), an irregular heartbeat, include pills that take time to work, or hospital-based procedures. InCarda Therapeutics aims to offer an alternative: a fast-acting inhalable... Read more »
A product that reduces emissions from farm animal waste? There’s now a drug for that.
The FDA has approved an Elanco (NYSE: ELAN) drug developed to reduce the ammonia gas... Read more »
Eli Lilly hasn’t been shy about making deals to build up its cancer immunotherapy pipeline, and its latest one is with NextCure, a biotech with technology that finds molecular targets to... Read more »
For the second time in three years, Amgen is turning to a smaller biotech to continue clinical development of an experimental celiac disease drug that was developed in its labs.
Under... Read more »
[Updated, 11/2/18, 11:09 a.m. ET. See below.] DNA sequencing giant Illumina is shoring up its position in genetic research through a cash deal to acquire Pacific Biosciences for approximately... Read more »
Sanofi sees potential in two early-stage Denali Therapeutics drugs as a way to reduce inflammation in the brain and throughout the body, and the two companies are teaming up to develop... Read more »
Synthetic biology company Twist Bioscience has joined the long list of life science firms going public this year, raising $70 million in its stock market debut.
The San Francisco company sold... Read more »
In the biotech investment and research communities this week, much of the attention was turned to Europe.
Munich, Germany, hosted the annual conference of the European Society for Medical Oncology, where... Read more »
[Corrected 10/25/18, 5:26 p.m. See below.] The competition to develop a treatment for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, a serious liver disorder, has another player. 89Bio launched Thursday with $60 million in... Read more »
[Updated, 10/25/18, 12:15 a.m. See below.] Amgen is cutting the list price of its new cholesterol-lowering drug by nearly 60 percent, a move the company says is intended to... Read more »
The Medicines Company exited the infectious disease business last year when it sold three bacteria-fighting products to Melinta Therapeutics. But Melinta didn’t get all of the company’s bug-fighting drugs, and what’s... Read more »
LogicBio Therapeutics has joined the list of biotechs to go public this year but it had to cut the price of its IPO and sell more shares to pull it off.... Read more »
Novartis has agreed to pay $2.1 billion cash to acquire Endocyte, expanding an ongoing effort by the Swiss firm to develop targeted radiation treatments for cancer.
Under the agreement, Novartis... Read more »
AbbVie is positioning itself to add fibrosis drugs to its pipeline through a new research and development partnership with startup Morphic Therapeutics.
Under the agreement, AbbVie (NYSE: ABBV) will pay... Read more »
[Updated 10/17/18, 2:52 p.m. See below.] Express Scripts has just exerted its influence over the emerging market battle between drug makers trying to sell a new class of migraine-preventing... Read more »
Warp Drive Bio started up in 2012 with a potential buyer, Sanofi, already in place. Six years later the Cambridge, MA, company is being acquired—by another startup, Revolution Medicines.
The companies... Read more »
Roche, the world’s biggest cancer drug company, selected the technology of startup SQZ Biotechnologies to help it develop new cellular therapies for cancer. Three years after that drug alliance started,... Read more »
The number of biotech companies completing an IPO has swelled this year and Adynxx aims to join their ranks—but through an alternate path. The pain drug developer has agreed to combine... Read more »
