Deals & Data
Shares of Vical jumped 22 percent after an independent safety board said it should continue late-stage trials of a melanoma vaccine, Allovectin-7. Vical is expecting a full complement of 375 patients to be enrolled in the Phase 3 trial in the next few weeks.
Cytori Therapeutics said that it received approval to start marketing a product that prepares a patient’s fat tissue for reinjection into the body for cosmetic procedures. The PureGraft system won approval from the FDA for use in body-contouring procedures and will become available in the first half of this year.
Shares of Somaxon Pharmaceuticals jumped 30 percent after Chief Executive Rich Pascoe said the company is continuing to work toward approval of an insomnia drug that regulators turned away last month. Pascoe said in an interview with bnet.com that the company will meet with the FDA later this month to gain “additional insights into a potential path forward.”
Arena Pharmaceuticals said that it has applied to the FDA for approval of a weight-loss drug, lorcaserin, putting it ahead of two potential competitors with drugs in the works. The company said 47.2 percent of patients on a twice-daily dose of the drug lost at least 5 percent of their weight. The average person in that group lost 5.9 percent of their weight, or 13 pounds for the average, 220-pound patient in the study.
San Diego’s Ligand Pharmaceuticals said its partner GlaxoSmithKline received a positive opinion for the drug Revolade (on the market under the name Promacta in the United States) from a committee of the European Medicines Agency. The drug, which treats reduced platelet count in patients with the disorder ITP, was jointly discovered by the companies and developed by GlaxoSmithKline.
Ambit Biosciences of San Diego announced a partnership with the Japanese company Astellas Pharma under which the companies will jointly develop drugs known as kinase inhibitors. Chief Executive of Ambit, Scott Salka, also spoke on the company and its outlook.
MediciNova said shareholders have approved a proposed merger with the Bay Area biotech Avigen. The deal calls for San Diego-based MediciNova to pay $37 million, with Avigen shareholders receiving $1.24 a share in either cash or secured convertible notes. Avigen shareholders would get additional payments in the future if certain events take place.
Tandem Diabetes Care, a San Diego-based company developing insulin pumps for diabetics, has raised $52.3 million round of equity financing that began last May, according to a regulatory filing. The company is led by CEO Kim Blickenstaff, the co-founder and former CEO of Biosite, a diagnostic company that was acquired by Inverness Medical Innovations for $1.8 billion in June 2007. The news was reported by Xconomy.
Ligand Pharmaceuticals said it received a $1 million milestone payment from Merck under a research collaboration that ended Dec. 31. The payment is a result of achieving a discovery milestone.
Genzyme said it has entered into a “mutual cooperation agreement” with Relational Investors, the $6 billion activist investment fund based in San Diego. The private investment firm began to acquire Genzyme shares in 2008, and Relational co-founder Ralph Whitworth began to publicly call for changes late last year at the Cambridge, MA-based biotech. Whitworth’s expertise in corporate governance and his reputation as an activist investor triggered a flurry of media speculation about the prospects for a shakeup at Genzyme. The San Diego fund now owns about 4 percent of the company’s stock.
Sequenom disclosed in a regulatory filing it has issued 367,547 additional shares of its common stock, valued at $1.5 million, to settle claims stemming from its acquisition of Ann Arbor, MI-based SensiGen’s molecular diagnostic tests. Sequenom said a few months earlier that it had mishandled data from clinical trials for its non-invasive test for Down syndrome, a revelation that has triggered at least two federal investigations.
Quidel, a leading provider of rapid point-of-care diagnostic tests, announced today the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire privately held, Ohio-based Diagnostic Hybrids, a market leader in manufacturing and commercializing direct fluorescent in vitro diagnostic assays used in hospital and reference laboratories for a variety of diseases, for approximately $130 million in cash.
Life Technologies, a provider of innovative life science solutions, announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire AcroMetrix, a provider of molecular and serological diagnostic quality control products to clinical laboratories, blood screening centers and in-vitro diagnostic (IVD) manufacturers, for an undisclosed amount.
AnaptysBio, a privately-held therapeutic antibody platform and product company, announced it has signed an agreement with Roche for the development of novel antibody therapeutics.
VentiRx Pharmaceuticals, VentiRx Pharmaceuticals, a San Diego and Seattle-based company that’s developing drugs to amplify the body’s innate immune system to fight cancer and allergies, has pulled in $25 million through a new round of financing.
SG Biofuels has announced it has formed a strategic alliance with Life Technologies, the Carlsbad, CA-based maker of genetic diagnostic equipment, laboratory instruments, and other biotech supplies.