Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Biotech Day: Tuesday morning's national biotech news

From the 40 business journals of American City Business Journals …

Shareholders seek to block Human Genome Sciences buyout (Baltimore Business Journal)
Two shareholders of Human Genome Sciences Inc. have filed a lawsuit to blockthe acquisition by GlaxoSmithKlineThe class-action complaint says the company failed to give stockholders a “meaningful chance to review material information” about the offer, according to documents filed in the U.S. District Court in Delaware. The lawsuit also seeks a temporary restraining order on the deal.
A closely watched Alzheimer's drug trial failed a late-stage test, Pfizer Inc. said MondayThe trial is the first of four with bapineuzumab by Pfizer partner Janssen Alzheimer Immunotherapy R&D LLC of South San Francisco. The trial of the intravenous drug focused on patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease who carry a specific genotype called ApoE4.
Cerulean Pharma launches ovarian cancer trial (Boston Business Journal)
Cerulean Pharma Inc., a privately held developer of cancer drugs delivered by tiny nanoparticles, has launched a Phase 2 study of its lead drug candidate in ovarian cancer patients who are resistant to some other drugs. The ovarian cancer study is targeting patients whose cancer has advanced despite treatment with standard platinum therapy.


Chronic-pain drug developer Relmada raises $3 million (Philadelphia Business Journal)
Relmada Therapeutics raised $3 million in a private stock sale, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Monday. The Blue Bell, Pa., clinical-stage pharmaceutical company is specializing in developing prescription products used to manage chronic pain.

Cancer drug combo of Nexavar and Tarceva fails late-stage trial (San Francisco Business Times)
Nexavar, the blockbuster cancer drug from Bayer HealthCare and Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc., failed a late-stage trial that looked at combining the drug with the Genentech-developed Tarceva in patients with advanced liver cancer. Onyx and Bayer said in a press release Monday that combining Nexavar and Tarceva tablets in the 720-patient, Phase III trial did not improve overall survival of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, or HCC. The trial compared the combination therapy to Nexavar alone.

Jeffrey Boily.
Up Close: Jeffrey Boily, CEO of the Center for Animal Health Innovation (Kansas City Business Journal)
Jeffrey Boily is CEO of the Center for Animal Health Innovation, an Olathe research advocate the Kansas Bioscience Authoritycreated last year to help academic and private-enterprise researchers identify the most promising animal health breakthroughs and turn them into saleable products. (Kansas City Business Journal subscription required.)

Integra Group bought by Ohio-based NAMSA (Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal)
The Integra Group, a medical research firm with about 50 employees, has been sold to North American Science Associates Inc. for an undisclosed amount. Northwood, Ohio-based NAMSA has about 550 employees, including those from Integra. The company provides testing and consulting services to medical-device makers.

Halo signs license agreement with University of North Dakota (Los Angeles Business)
Halo Healthcare Inc. has signed a definitive license agreement with the University of North Dakota to develop biomarkers for the early detection of breast cancer.

OneWorld Health's Ponni Subbiah.
Pfizer veteran to lead nonprofit drug developer OneWorld Health (San Francisco Business Times)
OneWorld Health named Dr. Ponni Subbiah as its first global program leader, responsible for the South San Francisco nonprofit's drug development portfolio. Subbiah is a 15-year veteran of Pfizer Inc., where she most recently was vice president of global access within the world's largest drugmaker's emerging markets business unit. She will join OneWorld Health on Aug. 1.

BioHealth Innovation adds staff, space in quest to help Maryland companies win more funding (Baltimore Business Journal)
BioHealth Innovation Inc. is adding staff and office space to expand its operations in central Maryland. The Rockville-based organization has created a new position, director of innovation programs, to lead the organization’s effort to help Maryland companies get a greater share of federal funding intended for near-commercialization projects.

Arizona biotech leader Jeff Morhet dies in plane crash in Colorado (Phoenix Business Journal)
Jeff Morhet, 43, who was active in Arizona’s biotechnology industry, died in a plane crash July 21. He was flying his CJ-6A airplane with his oldest son Jack, 9, when the plane crashed and both were killed.

St. Pete medical device company wins $4M patent infringement verdict (Tampa Bay Business Journal)
A St. Petersburg medical device company won a $4 million jury verdict in a patent case where the Ohio Willow Wood Co. was found to have willfully broken patents on 13 different products. Since the infringement was willful, the judge has an option to increase the jury’s verdict to as much as $12 million to ALPS South LLC.


KV Pharma receives another delisting notice (St. Louis Business Journal)
KV Pharmaceutical Co. officials said the company has been notified by the New York Stock Exchange that it is below listing standard criteria due to the company’s average market capitalization being less than $50 million over a 30-day trading period and its stockholder’s equity being less than $50 million.

No comments:

Post a Comment