Deals and Data - 10/23/08
With things nothing but doom and gloom on Wall Street, we were happy to wake up this morning to exciting news from Phenomix that the firm has landed a major diabetes partnership with Forest Laboratories worth potentially up to $340 million. An alternative to the company's planned, and pulled, IPO, Phenomix will take home $75 million now and work with Forest to develop and commercialize dutogliptin (PHX1149), an orally administered, small molecule treatment for Type 2 diabetes mellitus currently in Phase III trials.
With big pharma looking at more and more biotech deals, even the Wall Street Journal is pointing out that big biotech is a surprisingly stable ship in these topsy-turvy seas, so don't expect this to be the last big partnership you'll see this year.
Epicept completed a major step down a long road with the European approval of Ceplene, a drug that was originally developed here in town by Maxim Pharmaceuticals. The European Commission granted full marketing authorization for Ceplene for the remission maintenance and prevention of relapse in adult patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia in first remission in the 27 member states of the European Union, as well as in Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
Trius Therapeutics landed a $28 million NIH contract to study antibiotics that could have biodefense applications. Under the five-year contract, Trius will develop novel drugs targeting bacterial DNA Gyrase and Topoisomerase IV against biodefense pathogens such as Yersinia pestis, Francisella tularensis, and Burkholderia pseudomallei, all of which sound exceptionally unpleasant.
While we're at it, TorreyPines Therapeutics has had a raft of licensing deals, including a licensing agreement with Irvine-based Cenomed BioSciences for three compounds with potential for use following exposure to chemical warfare agents sarin, soman, tabun and VX, which also hope never to encounter. TorreyPines also signed this cross-town sale of IP to CalciMedica, who will be acquiring TorreyPines' central nervous system technology, and started a Phase I trail of a compound for chronic pain.
Boston-based Predictive Biosciences, which has a San Diego office, landed a $21.75 million VC round, led by New Enterprise Associates with new participation from Kaiser Permanente Ventures, an investment arm of Kaiser Permanente. Predicting is developing non-invasive diagnostic products for cancer.
Like Predictive Biosciences, Xconomy.com has offices in both Boson and San Diego, as well as Seattle. However Xconomy.com is building better biotech business coverage, as opposed to a biotech itself. Xconomy.com has certainly been paying attention to what is going on in San Diego with Bruce Bigelow, former business reporter at the Union-Tribune, covering the biotech and tech beat from Torrey Pines. They've done some interesting pieces, including this profile of David Kabakoff (a member of BIOCOM's executive VC suites), this feature on Santarus, and this look at the very complicated case when stars like Lance Armstrong, Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy and John Kerry all pressured Biogen Idec to give politically connected Frederick Baron access to Tysabri. Click early and click often; there are some great new news sites out there for different sources of information.
Speaking of Santarus, the sales-oriented specialty pharmaceutical company has started promoting Glumetza, an extended release form of metformin used to help control glucose in type2 diabetics which is part of a co-promotion deal with Depomed.
A day after showing increased effectiveness of its potential treatment pandemic influenza, cancer and as a protein vaccine, Vical says it signed a letter of intent with partner AnGes to license rights to Vical's pandemic influenza treatment in Japan.
Orexigen Therapeutics presented some exciting data on its obesity drug, showing that in Phase III trials, Contrave was able to show a 15 percent reduction in the weight of healthy, but obese people who were on the drug for a year.
Aires Pharmaceuticals, an early-stage drug development company with local VC Wendy Johnson at the helm says it signed a deal with the NIH to license its core technology, related to a combination drug and delivery device that treats pulmonary hypertension.
ChemDiv says it signed an exclusive agreement to licensed Swiss biotech firm Oncalis' ONC-201 preclinical family of potential cancer drugs. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Cytori Therapeutics also secured a $15 million line of credit from GE Healthcare Financial Services.
Quidel, which makes point-of-care diagnostic tests, says it signed a five-year $120 million credit facility with Banc of America Securities.
Not to be outdone, GE Healthcare Financial Services joined with BlueCrest Capital Financial to provide a $27.5 million secured credit facility to Carlsbad-based Skinmedica.
Nventa Biopharmaceuticals says it is focusing its efforts on developing its HspE7, Hsp 6/11 and Poly-ICR, and is seeking strategic alliances.
Biocept has named Stephen M. Coutts, Ph.D. as CEO, president and director, with Ed Dennis appointed director and former CEO, president and director, Gordon F. Janko resigning. Biocept, makes novel microfluidic devices used in diagnostics assays.
Evan Levine has resigned from Adventrx, which will go through cost-cutting to focus regulatory approval of its oncology products.
Althea Technologies has named Shabbir Anik, Ph.D. president and CEO. Anik was former president of Pharmaceutical Development Services (PDS) at Patheon, Inc., will lead Althea's expansion of its product development, clinical trial and commercial manufacturing services. Dr. Magda Marquet and Dr. Francois Ferre, the company's co-founders and former co-CEO's will continue to serve Althea as co-chairmen of the board of directors.
Ardea Biosciences started a Phase I/II trial of its RDEA119, a cancer treatment, in two kinds of carcinoma, in conjunction with Nexavar.
Ichor Medical systems showed preliminary Phase I data on its HIV vaccine at an AIDS conference.
Solana Beach-based ZyGEM and the Advalytix product team of Olympus Life Science Research Europa are working together to produce a private-label line of DNA extraction products. Read this Genetic Engineering News brief for more information.
SDSU-graduate Lpath has started dosing patients with age-related macular degeneration in an early Phase I trial aimed at showing how the monoclonal antibody can prevent bad blood vessel growth. The company also showed proof-of-concept data on the treatment.
Up in Irvine, Cortex Pharmaceuticals says it hit primary endpoints in a Phase II study of its opioid-induced respiratory depression drug, earning it a designation as one of the top 10 neuroscience projects available for partnering.
Coda Genomics of Laguna Hills says it signed a collaboration with Genecor to look at new enzymes an bio-based products that could have industrial applications.
Valeant Pharmaceuticals landed a $125 million milestone from GlaxoSmithKline for its Retigabine treatment for adult epilepsy patients. For those of you keeping score, that drug was acquired along with the rest of Xcel Pharmaceuticals back in 2005.