Art and Drue Gensler make $5 million gift to the Buck Institute

Art Gensler.

San Francisco architect Art Gensler and his wife Drue have donated $5 million to the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, the largest single individual gift from an individual to the Novato research center.

Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb to fund study of Portola's blood-thinner antidote

Portola CEO Bill Lis.

Portola Pharmaceuticals Inc. will get an undisclosed amount of cash in a deal with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Pfizer Inc. to test its experimental treatment to reverse the effect of blood-thinning Factor Xa inhibitor drugs, the company said Thursday.

The antidote, called PRT-4445, is supposed to reverse the anticoagulation work of so-called Factor Xa inhibitors, including Eliquis from Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) and Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) and South San Francisco-based Portola's betrixaban.

Advanced Cell Diagnostics lines up $12M Series B round

Diagnostic test developer Advanced Cell Diagnostics Inc. completed a $12 million Series B financing, led by New Leaf Venture Partners.

The Hayward company, which developed its RNAscope technology to detect and quantify RNA biomarkers, said existing investor Morningside Ventures also participated in the round.

BioMarin licenses North American rights to rare disease drug, invests $5M in 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.

Neuraltus moving Lou Gehrig's disease drug into Phase III

Neuraltus Pharmaceuticals Inc. will take its experimental Lou Gehrig’s disease drug into Phase III next year.

Although the drug didn’t hit its pre-defined goals in a mid-stage clinical trial, the company said Tuesday, an analysis of the results indicated that the drug stopped the disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, from progressing.
The news is significant for patients with the rare and fatal muscle-crippling disease because there is only one drug approved for ALS and it extends patients’ lives only by weeks.
It also is a victory for the small, privately held Palo Alto company, which is developing the drug in a disease that is poorly understood and where much-larger Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: BIIB) also has an ALS program in Phase III. It also could set up the company to be sold to a larger biotech or pharmaceutical company or strike a collaboration deal.
Yet, perhaps most of all, the decision to move forward with the drug, called NP-001, demonstrates the power of patients to fight for a drug they believe will alter the course of a disease that can kill patients within three to five years of diagnosis. A core group of ALS patients and their caregivers fought to fill Neuraltus’ Phase II trial.

How Massachusetts' Bluebird Bio tapped California's stem cell agency for cash, clinical trial help

Bluebird Bio's David Davidson.

California’s stem cell research funding agency took another step toward putting more potential therapies into human clinical trials.

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine awarded $9.3 million Thursday to Cambridge, Mass.-based Bluebird Bio and $10.1 million to ViaCyte Inc. of San Diego.
Bluebird is using stem cells and gene therapy to target young patients with the blood disorder beta-thalassemia. ViaCyte is working on an embryonic stem cell-based therapy for patients with insulin-dependent diabetes.
The awards are important because San Francisco-based CIRM, which is funded by California state bonds after voters in 2004 approved Proposition 71, to date has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on basic science and supporting the construction of new stem cell science buildings at places like the University of California, San Francisco, Stanford University and theBuck Institute for Age Research in Novato.
I spoke recently with David Davidson, chief medical officer of Bluebird Bio, about the company’s experimental stem cell treatment, called LentiGlobin, how a Massachusetts company came to win money from a California taxpayer-funded initiative (the answer might surprise you) and Bluebird’s upcoming clinical trial.

Gladstone, Stanford research offers new game plan for drugs targeting ALS

Faking out a key player linked to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis could provide a new game plan in drug researchers’ battle against the deadly disorder also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, according to scientists at the Gladstone Institutes and Stanford University.

The work is no small feat. The protein implicated in ALS, which slowly destroys the nerve cells that control muscle movement even while patients’ minds remain intact, also is critical for the survival of cells, so researchers essentially found a way of luring excess toxic amounts of the protein, called TDP-43.
The findings from the Gladstone and Stanford researchers, published Sunday in the online version of the science journalNature Genetics, mean little for the survival of ALS patients today. Researchers worked with yeast cells and neurons from rats -- one of the earliest stages in scientific discovery -- and even if a drug were found tomorrow it would likely take a decade or more to run through safety and efficacy trials in humans.
Still, the discovery could provide drug researchers with a new path for blocking the toxic accumulation of TDP-43 at a time when there is only one Food and Drug Administration-approved drug to treat ALS.

Ex-Codexis CEO unveils startup around enzymes to convert natural gas

Alan Shaw of Calysta Energy.

Alan Shaw, the effusive former head of enzyme company Codexis, has reemerged as CEO of San Francisco-based startup Calysta Energy.

And, spoiler alert, he’s got some new freedom and incentive to talk about why he thinks biofuels companies are failing – and why Calysta is taking a different approach.

BioMarin cuts ribbon on new San Rafael campus

BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. celebrated the opening of a new campus in San Rafael on Thursday.
The event was attended by California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and other VIPs, as well as Jean-Jacques Bienaimé, BioMarin's (NASDAQ: BMRN) CEO.

Auxogyn teams with Merck Serono on in vitro fertilization embryo test

Auxogyn Inc. made a deal with Merck Serono for advice and support in developing and marketing a test for embryos during in vitro fertilization.

Menlo Park-based Auxogyn and Darmstadt, Germany's Merck Serono will work together on the Early Embryo Viability Assessment, or Eeva Test. It was approved in July by European regulators -- getting the CE mark which allows it to be sold in the European Union -- and it is pending before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Alzheimer's drug failure translates into more job cuts in South San Francisco

Add about 130 jobs at Johnson & Johnson -- most of them in South San Francisco -- to the cuts following the failure of the experimental Alzheimer's disease drug bapineuzumab.
The move by the New Brunswick, N.J.-based drug giant (NYSE: JNJ) and its Janssen Alzheimer Immunotherapy Research & Development LLC unit comes as no surprise after the July and August announcements that bapineuzumab failed a handful of Phase III trials. Still, the decision adds to the South San Francisco workforce woes surrounding the drug.
Elan Corp., which originally developed the drug with Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, has said in regulatory filings that it will close its roughly 400-person South San Francisco drug discovery operations.

Tria Beauty wins lawsuit against rival Oregon Aesthetics

Tria Beauty Inc. won a legal battle against Oregon Aesthetic Technologies Inc. over a device that uses light to treat acne.

Dublin-based Tria had sued Oregon Aesthetic Technologies over a "blue light acne treatment device," saying it was falsely advertised as having been clinically tested and approved by regulators. Tria sells its own blue light acne treatment which has been tested and cleared by the Food and Drug Administration.

Science, people first for biotech investor Bill Bowes

Bill Bowes.

Bill Bowes is old school. Although he is one of the best-known and most well-respected investors in the biotech industry, he generally shuns the spotlight. When it comes to biotech startups, science and people — not hype — rule the day. Bowes, the first money into Amgen Inc. and the founder of venture capital firm U.S. Venture Partners, remains a shrewd judge of personal character and innovation that can shift the life sciences landscape as he starts to unwind from some of his business and philanthropic endeavors. “It’s always tempting to say, ‘Yes,’” he said about his nonprofit board work.

Genentech to 'gross up' to cover taxed benefits for same-sex partners of employees

What’s good for Google and a growing number of employers is good for Genentech — and for gay and lesbian employees and their partners. Starting Jan. 1, the South San Francisco-based biotech giant will “gross up” the pay of employees with same-sex partners to cover the taxes that the Internal Revenue Service grabs for company-provided medical benefits to families and the like. The IRS does not tax company benefits received by opposite-sex spouses. But federal tax law does not extend equivalent treatment to same-sex spouses.

Longitude Capital closes $385M life sciences fund

Private equity firm Longitude Capital closed a fund that will invest in the life sciences after raising $385 million for it. This fund, Longitude Venture Parnters II LP, will invest in drug development and medical technology. The firm had hoped to raise at least $325 million for it.