DEALS AND DATA May 15, 2009
San Diego is home to a new GMP manufacturing facility, courtesy of Althea Technologies, which hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony of its new building on April 30.
San Diego, known for its sunshine, breathtaking beaches and surfing sciences, now hopes to gain fame for another attribute – algae. Leaders of the region’s scientific, academic, biotechnology and political communities are teaming up to create a consortium that will share brain power and resources to develop and commercialize biofuels from algae.
When the swine flu turned deadly in Mexico and spread across the U.S. borders, health officials used cutting edge technology from San Diego companies to identify the virus and the people who had it.
A deal for pimavanserin last week may put the wind back in the sails of Acadia Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ACAD).
Along with wrangling with Carl Icahn, Amylin Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:AMLN) moves forward with its once weekly diabetes drug.
Gen-Probe retools its deal with DiagnoCure on new prostate cancer test.
Fate Therapeutics will make stem cells available for research.
Ocera Therapeutics released preliminary data from its liver disease study.
Isis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ISIS) released preclinical data and signs new collaboration on RNAi technology.
Altair Therapeutics on Friday named former Forward Ventures partner Joel Martin as president and CEO. Martin, who left the San Diego life sciences VC firm in October, was previously a co-founder of Avant BioVentures. Altair’s current CEO Paul Brennan will continue working with the company. Privately held Altair, which was founded in 2007, develops therapeutics for respiratory diseases like asthma and rhinitis. Its first compound, an inhaled new class drug, is in Phase 1 clinical trials.
San Diego-based Axikin Pharmaceuticals has reeled in $3 million in a first round of venture financing to advance its young pipeline of drugs to treat respiratory and inflammatory diseases. The investors are Sanderling Ventures, which has offices in San Diego and San Mateo, CA, and Mitsui & Co. Venture Partners in New York, according to a company announcement.
San Diego-based Anaphore said Friday it has raised $13 million in a second closing of its Series A preferred stock financing, bringing the round to a total of $38 million. Anaphore, founded in 2008, is developing a new class of protein therapeutics for life-threatening diseases. The company’s investors are the SR One venture unit of GlaxoSmithKline, Merck Serono Ventures, Aravis, 5AM Ventures, Versant Ventures, and Apposite Capital.
Regulus Therapeutics, the Carlsbad-based developer of drugs that block microRNA targets, said Friday it has reached the first milestone as part of its partnership with GlaxoSmithKline. Regulus has delivered specific micro RNA blockers, known as anti-MIRs, in mice, and shown how they change the expression of genes in immune cells. Regulus didn’t disclose any financial terms related to reaching the milestone. Regulus was founded as a joint venture of Carlsbad, CA-based Isis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ISIS) and Cambridge, MA-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ALNY).
Cadence Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: CADX),the San Diego company developing an intravenous form of acetaminophen, said on Friday that it has filed an application to seek FDA approval to start selling it in the U.S. If approved, it would be the first new IV pain reliever approved in the U.S. in more than 20 years, the company said.
Xconomy reports that San Diego’s Cytori Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CYTX) said May 8 that it has expanded its partnership agreement with GE Healthcare, a unit of General Electric, in which GE Healthcare will commercialize Cytori’s proprietary stem cell technology in North America. No financial terms were disclosed. Under a previous deal in January, GE agreed to commercialize Cytori’s products in ten European countries. In a separate announcement the company said it reached an agreement to raise $4.2 million through a private investment in a public entity. The company specializes in cosmetic stem cell technologies.
Ardea Biosciences (NASDAQ: RDEA) started a corporate restructuring. The company says in its Q1 news release that it will now focus on clinical-stage programs. Ardea had approximately 90 employees. Ardea recently announced a partnership with Bayer in which Ardea takes responsibility for clinical trials of its solid tumor kinase inhibitor treatment. If the trials are successful, Bayer will take over commercialization of the drug.
San Diego’s Vical (NASDAQ: VICL) said May 7 that it has the necessary genetic sequence and plans to produce a prototype vaccine for the H1N1 influenza, aka Swine Flu, “within the next few days.” A day earlier, Vical announced it has entered into an agreement with the U.S. Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC), a biomedical research organization within the U.S. Navy, for the expedited development of a Swine Flu vaccine. The goal is to get the vaccine into clinical testing as quickly as possible.