Biotech SF: XenoPort

Friday, April 8, 2011

XenoPort shares soar on FDA approval

Shares of XenoPort Inc. jumped 56 percent Thursday and remained heading north in Friday morning trading.
The Santa Clara-based biopharm (NASDAQ:XNPO) was at $10.10 in mid-morning trading after closing the day Thursday at $9.96. The stock's 52-week range is $5.66 to $11.82.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

XenoPort nabs its first FDA approval, for restless legs syndrome

Biopharmaceutical company XenoPort Inc. CEO and co-founder Ron Barrett got the phone call he had been waiting for Wednesday: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the company’s treatment of Restless Legs Syndrome.
Santa Clara-based XenoPort (NASDAQ:XNPT) and its partner in commercialization, health care group GlaxoSmithKline plc (NYSE:GSK), said the lead drug is under the trade name Horizant. Xenoport’s technology modifies an existing generic drug to help patients’ bodies better absorb it.

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.