Biotech SF: Catalyst Pharmaceutical Partners

Jean-Jacques Bienaime.

BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. has licensed North American rights to its rare disease drug Firdapse and is making a $5 million investment in a Florida company that will carry on with a Phase III trial of the drug in the United States.

The investment from Novato-based BioMarin (NASDAQ: BMRN) will help Catalyst Pharmaceutical Partners Inc. (NASDAQ: CPRX) complete an ongoing Phase III clinical trial of Firdapse, which treats patients with the potentially fatal autoimmune disorder Lambert-Eaton Myasthenic Syndrome, or LEMS.
BioMarin will retain its rights to Firdapse elsewhere in the world.

Some of my favorite stories.

• "The fight of his life" (2007)

Last year Mike Homer helped raise the money for 2,000 medical research computers. Now researchers are using that equipment in an attempt to save his life.

• "For reporter, CJD is more than a story" (2007)

Seven years ago -- nearly to the day -- my mother died of Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease.

• "A son's YouTube plea for Avastin" (2010)

Josh Turnage is your typical teenager, trying to discover what he wants to do in college and with his life. But a 7-minute, 41-second YouTube video he produced about his mother's fight with breast cancer may thrust him into a debate between drug makers and the agency that regulates them.

• "New device could knock out old dialysis technology" (2011)

Shuvo Roy has all the makings for the world's first implantable artificial kidney, thanks to nanotechnology and a web of nationwide collaborations.

All he needs now is $20 million.

Biotech SF

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

BioMarin licenses North American rights to rare disease drug, invests $5M in Catalyst Pharmaceutical Partners