Astrazeneca plc’s buyout of Amplimmune Inc. for $225 million up front could put the pipeline-strapped pharma giant high on the short list of leaders in combination immunotherapy, if the latter’s early stage candidates pan out, and the deal carries another $275 million in potential milestone payments.

Argos Therapeutics Inc.’s Series E financing – which has raised $42.5 million so far, including $30 million from the venture arm of a Russian pharma firm – is staying open and could turn into enough for the company to finish its pivotal Phase III trial with AGS-003, a personalized immunotherapy for metastatic kidney cancer.

Astrazeneca plc’s buyout of Amplimmune Inc. for $225 up front could put the pipeline-strapped pharma giant high on the short list of leaders in combination immunotherapy, if the latter’s early stage candidates pan out, and the deal carries another $275 million in potential milestone payments.

In a wagon-circling move typical after Phase III setbacks such as befell Vical Inc.'s compound for metastatic melanoma earlier this month, the company said it will cut its work force by about 39 percent, or 47 employees, leaving 74 still aboard, as the Allovectin project is abandoned and efforts turn to infectious-disease vaccine programs.

Regado Biosciences Inc.'s initial public offering (IPO) may not have made quite the splash that others have made in recent months, but the sale of about 10.7 million shares at $4 each provided $43 million that will help the firm's REG1, on the runway for Phase III trials, move ahead in percutaneous coronary intervention for acute coronary syndrome.

Biomarin Pharmaceutical Inc. has made clearer its Phase III plans for the Pompe disease drug candidate BMN-701, a fusion protein of insulin-like growth factor 2 and acid alpha glucosidase (GAA), but the study has not yet begun to enroll patients and talks are still under way about an endpoint that could help better distinguish the compound from Sanofi SA's competitor Lumizyme.

Marching ahead with its platform that finds monoclonal antibody binders to allosteric sites on receptors and ligands, Xoma Corp. priced a public stock sale of 7.5 million shares at $3.62, the previous day's closing bid, as investors await Phase III data on gevokizumab for uveitis.

Gtx Inc.'s blowup in two Phase III trials with enobosarm for muscle wasting in non-small-cell lung cancer patients (NSCLC) left the company with apparently dicey odds for approval in the U.S., where the FDA has granted the selective androgen receptor modulator fast-track status, but CEO Mitchell Steiner told investors that the "compelling" results provide cause for hope that marketing clearance might be gained in Europe.

With $25 million pledged from a stock sale to institutional investors, rare-disease specialist Retrophin Inc. signed a deal with an unidentified pharma firm for an option to license its autism/schizophrenia drug and said plans for a potentially pivotal trial are on track for RE-021, the firm's dual-acting receptor antagonist of angiotensin and endothelin receptors, as a therapy for focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSG).

The falter by Forest Laboratories Inc. and Spanish partner Almirall SA in submitting a new drug application (NDA), originally planned for the first quarter of this year, pushes the duo back somewhat in the race by pharma and biotech firms to win approval of the magic potion, long-acting muscarinic antagonist with a long-acting beta agonist for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.