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
Mammoth Biosciences set out to develop CRISPR-based diagnostics that could be faster and cheaper than what’s available today. Those diagnostics are still on the way, but Mammoth now has a new... Read more »
A little more than a year ago, Black Diamond Therapeutics unveiled technology that analyzes genetic data to discover new cancer drugs. Today the company has $201 million from an IPO to... Read more »
Spring Bank Pharmaceuticals is stopping work on an experimental treatment for hepatitis B virus after serious side effects, including one patient death, were reported in a mid-stage study.
The Spring Bank... Read more »
Decibel Therapeutics emerged four years ago aiming to build a pipeline of medicines for various forms of hearing loss. One of those drugs is in the clinic. Others were shelved.... Read more »
Sotatercept was one of the first compounds to emerge from the labs of Acceleron Pharma, but it became a forgotten piece of the company’s pipeline. Passed over as a candidate to... Read more »
Cells die all the time in a controlled manner that’s perfectly normal. But the way cells die matters. Sometimes cell death is violent, sparking inflammation believed to contribute to disease.
Quench... Read more »
Allergan is selling off an experimental drug and a commercialized product in order to allay antitrust concerns from regulators reviewing the company’s $63 billion acquisition by AbbVie.
The rights to... Read more »
Epizyme won accelerated FDA approval Thursday for a drug developed to treat the rare cancer epithelioid sarcoma (ES).
The regulatory decision for the Epizyme (NASDAQ: EPZM) drug, tazemetostat (Tazverik), covers... Read more »
[Updated 7:25 p.m. See below.] Safety concerns stymied Sarepta Therapeutics’ attempt to win FDA approval last August for golodirsen (Vyondys 53), its second Duchenne muscular dystrophy drug. But an... Read more »
CRISPR gene editing offers the potential to selectively edit the genetic mutations causing inherited diseases, but Emendo Biotherapeutics CEO David Baram contends it’s not precise enough. A large number of genetic... Read more »
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 »
[Updated 1/22/20120, 7:17 a.m. See below.] Emendo Biotherapeutics, a company aiming to apply CRISPR gene editing to a wider range of genetic diseases, has raised $61 million in financing.... 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 »
