La Jolla Pharmaceutical Co. is anything but new – founded in 1989, the biotech is best known for its rollercoaster ride with lupus drug Riquent (abetimus sodium).
Shares of Infinity Pharmaceuticals Inc. dropped 40 percent Friday on news that the biotech is stopping development of Hedgehog inhibitor saridegib (IPI-926) in pancreatic cancer after interim data from a Phase II trial showed better survival in the placebo arm.
Two years ago, when the Human Genome Project celebrated its 10th anniversary, scientists across the globe complained the massive sequencing feat had not ushered in an era of personalized medicine as initially promised. Even genomics experts like Francis Collins and J. Craig Venter acknowledged that the field's impact on medical practice has been minimal. (See BioWorld Today, April 5, 2010, and July 6, 2010.)
Developing diabetes drugs is no easy task. It's even harder if a start-up has to convince venture capitalists it can clear the FDA's high diabetes hurdles. And it's harder still if the FDA has just rejected a drug with the same mechanism of action.
The FDA's decision to reject AstraZeneca plc and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s Type II diabetes drug dapagliflozin last week was no surprise, given the drug's spotty safety record and a negative advisory panel vote. But the rejection isn't necessarily a death sentence for dapagliflozin, or for other SGLT2 inhibitors in development.
Pre-baked exits – in which a big pharma firm helps a venture firm found a new company in exchange for pre-negotiated acquisition rights – are on the rise.
When people talk about Johnson and Johnson’s new San Diego incubator, Janssen Labs, they can’t help but be a little bit skeptical about the fact that J&J isn’t taking any options or first-rights to compounds developed by its incubator tenants. “What’s the catch?” everyone keeps asking. “What does J&J get out of the deal?” I’m guessing J&J execs asked that same question when Diego Miralles, J&J West Coast site head, pitched them on his idea for a no-strings-attached incubator business model. And I’m guessing his answer was something along the lines of “well we’ve got all this expensive equipment and...
The San Diego biotech industry has been buzzing this week with the grand opening of Johnson and Johnson’s new incubator, Janssen Labs. But already plans for another San Diego incubator are being laid, this time at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute. Paul Laikind, Sanford-Burnham’s chief business officer, told BioWorld Today the facility will house six start-ups in an open-lab format similar to the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3). Companies will have access to lab space and can use Sanford-Burnham’s 33 core facilities in animal care, high throughput screening, metabolomics or other areas on a pay-as-you-go basis, Laikind said. Unlike...
Despite concerns about the economic climate in Europe and whether or not the U.S. is headed into another recession, biotech companies around the world managed to raise $23.4 billion in 2011, up from $19.3 billion in 2010 and almost back on par with the $24.8 billion raised in the glory days of 2007.
The cover story for BioWorld Insight this week is about the biotech venture capital world, and how despite its much-publicized contraction, there’s a lot of exciting stuff going on like established firms closing new funds, established players regrouping to form new firms, and everyone pushing the envelope with experimental business strategies. Although lots of changes are still to come, many of the VCs I spoke with noted how much the biotech venture world has changed already, just over the past few years. A few of their observations: A-B-C No Longer As Easy As 1-2-3: The traditional “Series A – Series...
