Life sciences briefing: Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2007
TODAY’S HEADLINES:
Elixir Pharma sets IPO range, seeks up to $92M for anti-aging drugs (Edgar)
Deltanoid Pharma raises $12M for kidney drugs (PDF release)
CovX, cancer and diabetes-drug biotech, acquired by Pfizer (release)
Affymetrix pays $75M for reagent maker USB (release)
Merrion Pharma postpones U.S. IPO, raises €5.6M in Dublin offering (Irish Independent)
Isis spinout Altair raising first round for asthma drugs (release)
“Human hydration” sensor maker Cantimer names Robin Stracey CEO (release)
Sensimed raises CHF 8M for glaucoma diagnostics (PE Hub)
Deltanoid Pharma… Continue Reading
Amgen, Relypsa and the art of the biotech-spinout-startup-restart
(UPDATED: See below.)
A common dilemma in biotech acquisitions is how to keep a startup’s entrepreneurial management happy and productive when they’ve just been assimilated by the Borg. The answer, often enough, is not to bother, and to let them spin out a new company with scientific “leftovers” that weren’t the point of the acquisition in the first place.
That’s more or less what Amgen has just done in launching Relypsa, a new Santa Clara, Calif., biotech just… Continue Reading
NephroGenex raises $3.3M for kidney disease
Cary, N.C.-based NephroGenex, a biotech developing personalized therapies for kidney disease, raised $3.3 million of an expected $26.8 million first funding round, VentureWire reports (subscription required), citing an SEC filing (no link available). There’s another report that cites PE Wire here.
Care Capital, BioStratum and Vanderbilt University are all 10 percent investors in the company, according to VentureWire.
NephroGenex’s aim is to tease apart a variety of different diseases that are generally lumped together as “kidney disease”… Continue Reading
Amgen buys kidney-disease biotech Ilypsa for $420M
Biotech powerhouse Amgen agreed to acquire Santa Clara, Calif.-based Ilypsa, a developer of drugs to treat complications of kidney disease, for $420 million in cash, roughly ten times what the company had raised in venture capital. The company’s release is here.
The high price could mean Amgen had to win a bidding war for Ilypsa, since one of the startup’s main investors was none other than the venture arm of Amgen archrival Johnson & Johnson.
Ilypsa has… Continue Reading
Roundup: Anemia drugs under assault, stem-cell trial moves forward, medical interventions and poor “quality of death,” and more
Is the bell tolling for EPO? – The news keeps going from bad to worse for the wonder drugs of biotech — the anemia treatments known as ESAs or EPO, shorthand for “erythropoiesis stimulating agents” and “erythropoietin,” respectively. Earlier today, an FDA advisory panel recommended new warnings for the drugs, which stimulate the production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells, as well as fresh clinical studies on their safety. Recent studies in kidney-dialysis patients linked higher doses… Continue Reading