Life sciences briefing: Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2007
Featured companies: Cerus, LabNow, Reliant Pharmaceuticals
UPDATED: Expanded items on Reliant Pharmaceuticals and Cerus.
GSK acquires Reliant Pharma for $1.65 billion — And then there were none. Reliant Pharmaceuticals, a Liberty Corner, N.J., specialty pharma that filed for an initial offering back in August, has instead decided to sell itself to GlaxoSmithKline for the eye-popping sum of $1.65 billion. The release is here. The acquisition news comes just days after doppelganger Reliant Technologies abandoned its own IPO bid (see… Continue Reading
Bellicum’s prostate-cancer vaccine: Dendritic cells served with a genetic twist
For a few brief months earlier this year, Dendreon’s Provenge looked like it might become the first cancer vaccine approved by the FDA, despite some iffy data supporting its effectiveness. The fate of Provenge now hangs in the balance following the FDA’s controversial decision to ask for additional data. But that hasn’t stopped Bellicum Pharmaceuticals from trying to improve on the work of its forbear.
(One quick note: Merck’s Gardasil and similar vaccines, which are frequently… Continue Reading
Life sciences briefing: Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2007
Featured companies: 20/20 GeneSystems, Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Cumbre Pharmaceuticals, Dara BioSciences, Enterprise Partners Venture Capital, Fermentas, International, Iasis Medical, New Leaf Venture Partners, Point Therapeutics, Power Medical Interventions, Rules-Based Medicine, Spinal Restoration, Still River Systems, Targanta Therapeutics
(UPDATED: See below.)
[NOTE: In the interests of getting items up as quickly as possible, I’m going to begin posting linked headlines, which I’ll subsequently flesh out in many — but not all — cases. As the news gets heavier, the briefing is… Continue Reading
Roundup: Biogenerics bill in limbo, clashing data on health IT benefits, the RNAi boom, and more
House-Senate confrontation set over biogenerics – Late last month, a key group of senators reached agreement on legislative provisions that would authorize copycat versions of biotech drugs, which are typically complex proteins manufactured by genetically engineered cells (see details here and here). These provisions would finally put biotech drugs — which don’t face cut-rate competition once their key patents expire — on a par with traditional pharmaceuticals, and have been a long time in coming. They’re… Continue Reading