Three biotech companies collectively raised $584 million in their initial public offerings last week, continuing a streak of IPOs that has the healthcare sector playing a leading role in the robust level of market activity this summer.
Of the three companies,... Read more »
Cash flowed throughout the life sciences ecosystem this week as Blackstone (NYSE: BX) raised a record-setting life sciences fund, companies of all stages announced new financings, and money continued to find its way to those working on efforts to treat... Read more »
Dave Johnson has known UC San Diego physician and cancer reseacher Thomas Kipps for nearly 20 years. Now Johnson, CEO of San Diego-based cancer drug developer VelosBio, has secured $137 million to accelerate the company’s goal of developing targeted therapies based... Read more »
The federal government’s Operation Warp Speed has made its biggest financing award yet, promising $1.6 billion to a Maryland biotech to help advance its investigational COVID-19 vaccine and ready millions of doses in preparation for its possible success.
Gaithersburg, MD-based Novavax,... Read more »
Here’s a look back at some of the life science industry’s executive appointments, departures, and retirements from recent weeks:
—Pacific Biosciences (NASDAQ: PACB) CEO Michael Hunkapiller and Chief Financial Officer Susan Barnes are retiring.
—Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA) appointed... Read more »
MEI Pharma and its Swiss partner Helsinn are ending a Phase 3 study of an investigational cancer drug for patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) after an interim analysis indicated it was unlikely to meet the trial’s main goal of helping... Read more »
A new version of a combination drug marketed by Roche for early-stage and metastatic breast cancer with a specific genetic signature received FDA approval Monday for a formulation that can be delivered in minutes rather than an hour or more.
The... Read more »
Heron Therapeutics revealed Monday that its investigational non-opioid drug for treating postoperative pain has again been rejected by the FDA.
The San Diego company’s HTX-011 is an extended-release solution of bupivacaine, a local anesthetic, and meloxicam, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug. Heron... Read more »
Creating cell therapies for cancer is a complex process. The business case for them has proven tricky, too.
Biotech veterans Tom Farrell and Peter Flynn have teamed up to start a new San Diego company that aims to develop allogeneic, or... Read more »
Uncertainty related to the continued spread of the pandemic continued to consume most of the oxygen in the room this week, but life sciences news outside of that arena continued apace.
Once considered all but shuttered, the IPO market again saw... Read more »
It’s common for antibiotics developers to run into financial trouble these days but what’s unusual is seeing a bidding war erupt for one of them. The competition for Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals now has a new winner: La Jolla Pharmaceutical.
San Diego-based... Read more »
Reneo Pharmaceuticals has encouraging results from an early trial of a compound it is advancing for rare diseases characterized by impaired mitochondria—our cells’ energy generators—and the company says it is now designing a large global study of its drug candidate.
Headed... Read more »
The biggest life sciences deal this week involves a company that doesn’t discover or develop drugs, or even sell them. Yet its mark is found on pharmaceutical products spanning the entire sector.
Royalty Pharma (NASDAQ: RPRX) acquires the royalty rights... Read more »
Typically a new biotech assembles a group of investors that collectively puts in the money a fledgling company requires to develop or acquire potential therapies.
Engrail Therapeutics, which emerged from stealth Thursday with $32 million in outside financing, landed its entire... Read more »
Lassen Therapeutics, a biotech that is developing antibodies as potential treatments for fibrosis, rare diseases, and cancer, debuted Wednesday with $31 million in Series A financing.
The San Diego-based company says it will use the money to accelerate its antibody programs,... Read more »
Gene sequencing company Pacific Biosciences of California is seeking two new leaders in the wake of retirement announcements by a pair of longtime top executives.
PacBio (NASDAQ: PACB) president and CEO Michael Hunkapiller plans to retire by year’s end, and... Read more »
The FDA on Monday revoked its emergency authorization permitting use of the antimalarial drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat the novel coronavirus, citing a lack of evidence of their efficacy.
In late March the agency authorized the drugs, which President Donald... Read more »
At the start of 2020 thousands of biotechies anticipated spending the second week of June in San Diego, hobnobbing at the annual conference hosted by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization.
Instead, attendees from 64 countries spanning 28 times zones convened online this week... Read more »
Less than a month after reporting preliminary early-stage data for its experimental vaccine for the novel coronavirus, Moderna has finalized the plan for a Phase 3 test.
The study, set to begin next month, is targeting enrollment of about 30,000 volunteers,... Read more »
Hearing loss can stem from a variety of reasons, but in rare cases it’s caused by genetic defects. Akouos is developing a gene therapy to address these problems and it’s planning an IPO to finance the first tests of its approach... Read more »
Race is not a topic that often comes up in pharmaceutical discussions but perhaps it should. Disease doesn’t discriminate by race, but health and economic disparities put some groups at higher risk than others. And yet clinical trials fail to reflect... Read more »
An AbbVie drug that treats pain in the uterus has notched an additional FDA approval for addressing heavy menstrual bleeding associated with uterine fibroids.
The regulatory decision Friday covers that drug, elagolix, combined with estrogen and progestin in a capsule that... Read more »
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