Maker of sterile bags for drug companies cutting 91 jobs, moving Concord work to Puerto Rico

Sartorius Stedim SUS Inc., which makes sturdy, IV-like, single-use bags used by drug manufacturers, is closing its Concord plant beginning this month and moving operations to an expanded facility in Puerto Rico. Ninety-one people will lose their jobs in the move, with the first wave expected this month, according to an August letter from the company to Stephen Bailer, executive director of the Workforce Development Board of Contra Costa County. The plant closing process will be completed by the end of April 2013. "We have a great workforce there and we're lucky to have such a committed, long-tenured team," said Sartorius President Mary Lavin in New York. "But we needed to expand."

California seeks three more iHubs, expands San Francisco program

GO-Biz executive director Rish Kajan.

San Francisco’s iHub is growing. The unfunded state Innovation Hub program, which began with a San Francisco focus on the biotech industry in Mission Bay, will open to the entire city, state officials said Wednesday. It also will expand to other sectors, including high tech, cleantech nd the city’s fashion and art communities. Kish Rajan, the newly appointed director of the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development, or GO-Biz, also said the state is opening the application process from communities throughout the state to expand the number of iHubs by three.

Onyx, Bayer win approval of colorectal cancer drug regorafenib

Onyx CEO Tony Coles.

Bayer HealthCare and Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. won approval Thursday of their colorectal cancer drug regorafenib. The Food and Drug Administration's speedy approval -- regorafenib was submitted for approval in colorectal cancer in April and submitted for approval for gastrointestinal stromal tumors at the end of August -- follows South San Francisco-based Onyx's approval in July of its treatment for multiple myeloma, called Kyprolis. Regorafenib will be marketed as Stivarga.

Slideshow: Bayer opens its CoLaborator

Bayer HealthCare showcased its new CoLaborator incubator Monday under sunny skies, literally and figuratively. Leaders of young biotech companies Aronora Inc. and ProLynx LLC, and roughly 100 other guests, officially opened the 6,000-square-foot facility Monday on the ground floor of Bayer's Mission Bay research center. It was, Mayor Ed Lee said, proof that San Francisco is "the innovation capital of the world," linking small and large companies.

Bayer opens Mission Bay 'CoLaborator' with 2 tenants

Bayer's Chris Haskell.

Bayer HealthCare's answer to the incubator boom -- and the company's push to tap outside innovation -- officially kicks off Monday with the opening of its Mission Bay CoLaborator. Two companies -- Aronora Inc. and ProLynx LLC -- are the first tenants of the 6,000-square-foot ground-floor incubator in Bayer's nearly 2-year-old research center. Aronora, led by CEO Andras Gruber, is working on drugs that prevent or interfere with blood clotting. ProLynx is developing "linker systems" that help predict and control the extension of drug half-life, or the amount of time it takes for a body to lose half of the amount of a drug.

Healthiest Employers: Bayer fosters culture of fitness with fun events

When Angela Elliot isn’t teaching aerobics to her colleagues, she’s out jogging with them on her lunch break. If she doesn’t show up, she feels guilty about it later. Elliott, a senior manager for Bayer Healthcare’s process validation group, is just one of many employees who lives up to the company’s motto of using science for a better life. The company’s focus on well-being has created a culture of health and fitness that encourages employees to encourage each other.

Bayer submits 'son of Nexavar' cancer drug for FDA approval

Onyx CEO Tony Coles.

Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s experimental cancer drug regorafenib -- viewed as the "son of Nexavar" from Bayer and Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. -- was submitted Thursday for approval to the Food and Drug Administration, the companies said. Bayer said the new drug application was submitted for regorafenib's treatment of metastatic or unresectable gastrointestinal stromal tumors in patients whose cancer continues despite prior treatments.

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 GlaxoSmithKline. The 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.

Alzheimer's drug bapineuzumab fails late-stage trial (San Francisco Business Times)

A closely watched Alzheimer's drug trial failed a late-stage test, Pfizer Inc. said Monday. The 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.

Cancer drug combo of Nexavar and Tarceva fails late-stage trial

Nexavar, the blockbuster cancer drug from Bayer HealthCare and Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc., failed a late-stage trial that combined 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.

Bayer's CoLaborator seeks startups, partnerships

(San Francisco Business Times subscription required.)

Bayer HealthCare is launching a bold experiment with four companies, 6,000 square feet of space and a dream of where Big Pharma collaborations could lead.

From now-vacant ground-floor space at its research facility in San Francisco’s Mission Bay, the Berkeley-based U.S. unit of the German drug maker this summer will open its doors to four companies. The hope is that Bayer will not be a mere incubator landlord, but a partner that could use those companies’ technologies or drugs.

New growth industry: Bay Area biotech incubators

(San Francisco Business Times subscription required.)

Biotech incubators in the Bay Area have doubled in the last two years to six from three — and the space is filling quickly.

Incubators have increasingly become an important part of nurturing fledgling life sciences companies, especially those spun out of local universities and searching for ways to reduce their early-stage costs.

Onyx crosses fingers as Bayer submits cancer drug to FDA

Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. will be paid royalties on sales of a Bayer drug aimed at colorectal cancer if it's approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Bayer HealthCare submitted the drug, regorafenib, to the FDA seeking approval to use it to treat metastatic colorectal cancer. 

Onyx and Bayer's Nexavar fails late-stage lung cancer trial

Blockbuster cancer drug Nexavar failed a late-stage trial in patients with a type of lung cancer.

South San Francisco-based Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc.    (NASDAQ: ONXX) and partner Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals    said the Phase III trial of Nexavar tablets in patients with advanced relapsed or refractory non-squamous, non-small cell lung cancer did not show that patients given Nexavar would live longer.

The trial did show that those patients experienced an improvement in progression-free survival, or the time patients live without the disease worsening.

Report: Bayer closing in on takeover of drug partner Onyx

Drug developer Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s stock closed up 9 percent on rumors that longtime partner Bayer AG will soon close a deal to buy the South San Francisco biotech company. Bayer is zeroing in on a large acquisition, Reuters reported Wednesday. One source told the news agency that Marjin Dekkers, CEO of the German drug maker, is “keen to do something and it could happen within the next couple of days.” Folks who watch for mergers and acquisitions like Kremlinologists during the Cold War translated that to mean an Onyx deal is brewing on the eve of the local company’s 20th anniversary. “It’s speculation and rumors,” Onyx spokeswoman Lori Melancon said Wednesday. “We just don’t comment on market rumors.”

UCSF chancellor blows up the boxes to remake campus, UC system

(SF Business Times subscription required.)

When UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann started her Twitter account last month, she had two goals: do her own micro-blogging and never tweet about eating a tuna fish sandwich for lunch.
The University of California, San Francisco’s ninth chancellor runs little risk of inanity. Some 2-1/2 years into her tenure, Desmond-Hellmann has moved comfortably into her role as UCSF’s face. But more importantly, she is tackling head-on — and with some controversy — the way things are done on her campus and within the UC system.
How those initiatives fare is anyone’s guess. A plan to rework how grant applications are assembled has faced opposition from faculty. Questions also surround an ambitious idea that Desmond-Hellmann pushed at last month’s UC Board of Regents meeting for UCSF to largely split off from the 10-campus UC system.
Regardless, even skeptics applaud Desmond-Hellmann for her bold, pragmatic attempts to deal with an unsteady financial foundation and shake up traditional structures. She is, many say, the right person for the right job at the right time.

Desmond-Hellmann: UCSF wants new structure, transparency around fund flows, IP, more

UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann is proposing a new structure for her school, loosening the relationship between the healthcare-centric, graduate-level university and the University of California Office of the President.
San Francisco Business Times biotech and education reporter Ron Leuty spoke Friday with Desmond-Hellmann about her plan. Here are parts of that conversation.

Nektar's drug diversity may be its strength

When Howard Robin took over as president and CEO of Nektar Therapeutics Inc. in early 2007, the company was based in San Carlos with a high payroll and, essentially, one product in the form of the inhaled insulin drug-device Exubera.
Since Pfizer Inc. pulled Exubera later that year, Nektar (NASDAQ: NKTR) has moved to San Francisco, shed workers, cut expenses and developed several programs, ranging from breast cancer to pain.
I take a look at one of those drugs, NKTR-181, in a print edition story in the Jan. 20 issue. But the real story here is Nektar’s ongoing metamorphosis from “the inhaled insulin company” to one with the proverbial multiple shots on goal in multiple diseases.

Bayer, Onyx colorectal cancer drug shows modest improvement in survival

A colorectal cancer drug under development by Bayer HealthCare modestly improved overall survival in some of the sickest patients in a late-stage trial, partner Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. said Tuesday, and Bayer will seek Food and Drug Administration approval of the drug this year.
The median overall survival of patients on experimental regorafenib was 6.4 months. That compares to five months for patients who were given a placebo.
Onyx called the finding, released at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s gastrointestinal cancer meeting in San Francisco, statistically significant. But critics appeared less than wowed by the small improvement.

Bayer targets Mission Bay incubator, partners

Bayer HealthCare is diving into the Mission Bay incubator business, hoping to parallel the success of nearby startup havens and, perhaps, snag a long-term partner or two in the process.
The drug developer, which in late 2010 set up its U.S. innovation center in San Francisco’s Mission Bay biotech enclave, said Monday that it would create a 6,000-square-foot incubator this summer to house three or four companies.

Xoma shifts manufacturing to contractor, cuts 84 jobs

Xoma Corp. will cut 84 jobs — about one-third of its workforce — as the Berkeley-based drug developer shifts much of its manufacturing to a contractor.
Xoma (NASDAQ: XOMA), which officially took “interim” off CEO John Varian’s title, said Thursday that it will eliminate 50 jobs immediately and cut the other 34 jobs by the end of the first quarter.