Latest Posts

• Failed Clinical Trial Puts Eli Lilly Cancer Drug in Limbo

  An Eli Lilly drug on the market for a rare form of cancer is now in limbo, after it failed a trial needed to retain the FDA approval the treatment, known as olaratumab (Lartruvo), won two years ago.

  Lilly (NYSE: LLY... Read more »

  Frank Vinluan1/18/19

• Bio Roundup: Aimmune Drama, Shutdown Blues, Perlmutter Talks Cancer

  The partial government shutdown, now the longest in U.S. history, began to take a bite out of biotech this week, served with a hot side dish of confusion.

  On Tuesday, Aimmune Therapeutics (NASDAQ: AIMT) said the shutdown would delay the... Read more »

  Ben Fidler1/18/19

• What’s Your Emergency? Law Enforcement’s Increasing Interest in Tech

  Fort Worth, TX—Data analytics and visual search technologies are increasingly being used by law enforcement agencies, growth that has captured the attention of tech giant Motorola.

  The Chicago-based tech company, which has long sold narrow-band radios to law enforcement, has... Read more »

  Angela Shah1/17/19

• FDA Panel Backs Amgen Bone Drug, Says Benefits Outweigh Heart Risks

  [Updated 1/17/19, 8:50 a.m. See below.] An experimental Amgen osteoporosis drug that had sparked concern about cardiovascular side effects has won the backing of an FDA advisory panel.

  A total of 15 panelists on Thursday voted that the benefits... Read more »

  Frank Vinluan1/16/19

• Merck And The Future of Immuno-Oncology: A Chat With Roger Perlmutter

  Cancer immunotherapy is, in a word, tantalizing. It might save the life of someone at death’s door and keep the cancer at bay for years. Or it might not work at all. There’s no telling what a patient will experience.

  “There’s... Read more »

  Ben Fidler1/16/19

• A VC’s Take: Global Volatility Hurts U.S. Venture Ecosystem

  As Xconomy’s editors looked back at the year just passed, we asked technology leaders to comment on the trends they’d observed in 2018, and the developments they expected in 2019. Some leaders responded with their views on the business impact of... Read more »

  Bernadette Tansey1/15/19

• Pensa, AI-Enabled Drones Maker for Inventory Monitoring, Raises $5M

  [Updated, 1/18/19, 1:10 pm CT] Austin—The grocery store shelf has yet to be plugged into the increasingly digital food supply chain. Instead, inventory is typically tallied by employees by hand in a slow and laborious process.

  “It’s one... Read more »

  Angela Shah1/13/19

• E-Commerce Startups, Legacy Stores Grapple With Changing Retail Scene

  The changing of the guard transforming retail is accelerating.

  Sears, the nation’s first “everything store,” is teetering toward bankruptcy after years of stagnation as industry leaders prepare to gather in New York at the National Retail Federation’s annual conference. Yet, new... Read more »

  Angela Shah1/11/19

• Tech Companies Share Shutdown Losses, With Little Chance of Back Pay

  As federal agency employees miss their first paychecks today due to the partial government shutdown that began Dec. 22, federal contractors and their workers—including technology professionals—face a loss of income that they may never recover.

  Big technology companies such as Oracle... Read more »

  Bernadette Tansey1/11/19

• Bio Roundup: #JPM19 Notes, Loxo Buyout, Black Diamond’s Cash & More

  Diabetes drugs are Eli Lilly’s bread and butter, but the pharmaceutical giant hasn’t lost its appetite for cancer drugs. It grabbed hold of a few more this week by betting $8 billion on Loxo Oncology.

  Loxo (NASDAQ: LOXO) has made... Read more »

  Frank Vinluan1/11/19

• Notes from the JPM19 Vortex: Price Apocalypse, Celgene Fallout & More

  [Editor’s note: Ben Fidler and Sarah de Crescenzo coauthored this report.] It is here, and then it is gone. But by the time everyone staggers to the airport or back home to sleep in their own beds, the annual... Read more »

  Alex Lash1/11/19

• Uncertainty Grows for Biotech as Government, FDA Shutdown Drags On

  The partial government shutdown could soon become the longest shutdown in history, and biotech firms that have submitted regulatory filings are facing greater uncertainty about their future plans. More than 40 percent of FDA workers and thousands at the SEC are... Read more »

  Corie Lok1/10/19

• FAANG, Public Trust, Valuations, in 2019: The Read from Menlo Ventures

  The market caps of some of the most successful tech titans reach as high as $1 trillion. Yet in 2018, perceptions about these dominant companies often reflected uneasiness and doubt—and for some, so did their stock performance.

  Maybe the mood shift... Read more »

  Bernadette Tansey1/10/19

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• Big Deals, Life Sciences Push U.S. VC in 2018 to Dot-Com Boom Levels

  [Updated 1/18/19, 3:27 pm. See below.] Venture capital investments rose in 2018 to levels not seen since the heady days of 2000, the last year U.S. startups collectively took in more than $100 billion.

  That’s according to PitchBook and... Read more »

  Sarah de Crescenzo1/10/19

• Beta Bionics Secures $63M as AI-Driven “Pancreas” Heads to Key Tests

  Beta Bionics, a startup developing a medical device that monitors and manages blood sugar levels in diabetes patients, has closed $63 million to back late-stage clinical tests of its AI-powered technology.

  The cash tops off a Series B round of funding... Read more »

  Frank Vinluan1/9/19

• The Power Combo of A.I. Devices with Cloudlets Comes with Cyber Risks

  When we have a chance to view it from a distance, the year 2018 may be seen as a period when innovations in a number of technological fields came together to transform not only the future of computing, but also the... Read more »

  Bernadette Tansey1/8/19

• Catalent Investing $200M to Expand in Wisconsin, Indiana

  [Updated 1/8/19, 12:49 pm, with spokesperson comments.] Life sciences companies are keeping construction crews busy in Wisconsin’s state capital.

  The latest project comes from Somerset, NJ-based contract research and manufacturing firm Catalent (NYSE: CTLT), which said Monday it... Read more »

  Jeff Engel1/8/19

• Microsoft, Kroger Advance Grocery Tech to Fend Off Amazon

  From the cloud on down to the floors of supermarkets, the rivalry between Microsoft and Amazon spans many sectors in software, gadgets, and increasingly, retail.

  The Seattle-area tech giants are battling—both with one another, and other competitors—to further digitize grocery shopping.... Read more »

  Jeff Buchanan1/7/19

• Bio-JPM Roundup: Lilly Buys Loxo, Sage’s Stock Soars, ALS Cash & More

  The flow of biotech news is particularly heavy today, and for good reason. The annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, one of the biggest gatherings for the biopharmaceutical industry, kicked off today in San Francisco, and many companies, whether they’re speaking at... Read more »

  Frank Vinluan1/7/19

• Eli Lilly Makes an $8B Cancer Genetics Bet with Loxo Acquisition

  [Updated 1/7/19, 11 a.m. ET. See below.] Eli Lilly is set to acquire Loxo Oncology for approximately $8 billion—a deal that brings to the Indianapolis pharmaceutical giant a class of drugs that treat cancers with particular genetic signatures.

  Under... Read more »

  Frank Vinluan1/7/19

• Tech Leaders Weigh In on Tim Berners-Lee’s “Contract for the Web”

  Looking back over the past two years, it seems that public perceptions of tech companies have shifted, compared with the eager acceptance that often prevailed as innovations from these businesses transformed social interactions, transportation, and other aspects of life.

  In early... Read more »

  Bernadette Tansey1/7/19

• Bio Roundup: $74B for Celgene, Two CAR-T Tales, Ready for SF & More

  In 2018, my Exome colleagues and I published hundreds of stories about health, medicine, the biopharma industry, government policy, and more. You’ll find a few of our favorite stories in this review of some of the year’s best from across the... Read more »

  Alex Lash1/4/19

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• From Immigration to Taxes, Execs Talk Trump Effect on Innovation

  When it comes to developing and promoting innovation, external factors beyond the control of company founders, investors, and other business leaders can also determine whether a startup succeeds or fails.

  In 2018, geopolitical events—in particular, President Donald Trump’s hard-line stances on... Read more »

  Angela Shah1/4/19

• For CAR-T Cancer Fighters in the Real World, Two Roads Diverge

  [Corrected, 1/4/19, 3:55pm ET. See below.] A generation ago, cancer treatments made from a patient’s own living immune cells would have been science fiction. Now they’re here. The first two products, approved in 2017 and known in shorthand as... Read more »

  Alex Lash1/3/19

• In a Huge Biopharma Shakeup, Bristol-Myers to Buy Celgene For $74B

  Bristol-Myers Squibb has agreed to acquire Celgene in a deal that would create one of the largest biopharma organizations in the world and send ripples throughout the life sciences sector.

  Bristol (NYSE: BMY) on Thursday morning inked a deal to... Read more »

  Ben Fidler1/3/19

• Copps: Key Ingredient As A.I. Permeates Daily Life is Building Trust

  The promise, and pitfalls, of artificial intelligence became more apparent in the last year, and for Dave Copps, founder of A.I. companies such as Brainspace and Hypergiant Sensory Sciences, the pace of adoption will only accelerate in 2019.

  What can help... Read more »

  Angela Shah1/2/19

• New Year to Bring New Data Security Threats, Cyber Investor Warns

  Bob Ackerman is one of the venture capitalists whose funding has long fed the growth of the burgeoning cybersecurity industry. So, you might imagine that his outlook on data protection for 2019 would be more optimistic than in past years, because... Read more »

  Bernadette Tansey1/2/19

• Indy Roundup: Pelican BioThermal, Pattern89, Perceivant Make Moves

  As 2018 comes to a close, Indiana startups and tech entrepreneurs are as busy as ever. Here are some recent headlines from the Hoosier State’s innovation community:

  —Pattern89, a startup using artificial intelligence to improve paid advertising results on... Read more »

  Sarah Schmid Stevenson12/27/18

• From Alnylam to Zayner: Xconomy’s Top Innovation Stories of 2018

  2018 was a year of ups and downs for the business and technology community. It was a year of big exits—both IPOs and acquisitions—for tech and life sciences companies. Venture funding remained strong, but more money went to fewer (and later-stage)... Read more »

  Gregory T. Huang12/27/18

• Saxena: More Than a Tool, A.I. Must Be Used With Society in Mind

  [Updated 12/27/18, 9:54 am] Manoj Saxena is bullish on artificial intelligence. As chairman of Austin, TX-based A.I. startup CognitiveScale and managing director of The Entrepreneur Fund, which makes investments in early-stage machine learning companies, Saxena believes A.I. can... Read more »

  Angela Shah12/27/18

• CFOs: Prepare To Become Your Company’s Data Czar This Year

  In mid-2018, Tom Bogan was the leader of business planning software company Adaptive Insights as it planned its own next steps. The Palo Alto, CA-based company was on the point of raising about $115 million in a June IPO that would... Read more »

  Bernadette Tansey12/27/18

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