April 6, 2015 - Healthcare Finance

Ventas is acquiring Ardent Medical Services and its Ardent Health Services affiliates for $1.75 billion in cash, Ventas announced Monday. The move creates growth for the Chicago-based real estate investment trust in the attractive U.S. hospital properties market. The transaction is expected to close mid-year. At that point, Ventas will own ten hospitals operated by Ardent under the names BSA Health System in Amarillo, Texas, Hillcrest HealthCare System in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Lovelace Health System in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

April 6, 2015 - Pharmaceutical Business Review

Depomed has completed acquisition of the US license rights to the Nucynta franchise from Janssen Pharmaceuticals for $1.05bn. Nucynta is indicated to manage moderate-to-severe acute pain in adults, Nucynta ER extended release tablets are indicated to manage pain, including neuropathic pain associated with diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN), severe enough to require daily, around-the-clock, long-term opioid treatment. Nucynta oral solution is an approved oral form of tapentadol that has not been launched. The franchise includes Nucynta (tapentadol), Nucynta ER (tapentadol) extended-release tablets and Nucynta (tapentadol) oral solution.

April 6, 2015 - Healthcare IT News

Medsphere Systems and Richardson, Texas-based Phoenix Health Systems have merged. The merger, officials say, adds Phoenix's information technology expertise to Medsphere's existing focus on VA VistA and VistA-derived systems. Moving forward, Phoenix Health Systems will retain its name and operate as a division of Medsphere. The expanded company will now offer a broader portfolio of IT services, including hosting and cloud-based interoperability, IT service desk support and project management around many EHR solutions, including enterprise OpenVista.

April 6, 2015 - Healthcare IT News

Healthland, which develops IT for rural and community hospitals, has acquired Rycan, a developer of revenue cycle management technology, for an undisclosed sum.The acquisition of Marshall, Minn.-based Rycan "is timely considering Medicare cuts, changing payer markets and new payment models that are straining the typical billing and collections efforts for acute and post-acute care organizations," said Healthland CEO Chris Bauleke in a statement. Rycan technology, which will be integrated into Healthland's Centriq software suite, will help Healthland strengthen its revenue cycle offerings to its rural customers and also to the skilled nursing facility customers of American HealthTech, an EHR developer it acquired in 2013.

April 6, 2015 - Bio Space

After San Carlos, Calif.-based Flexus Biosciences was bought by New York's Bristol-Myers Squibb Company for $1.25 billion in February 2015, company execs Terry Rosen and Juan Jaen turned around and started a new company. Flexus Biosciences was founded in 2013 with a focus on small-molecule cancer immunotherapies that target regulatory T cells. The company utilizes immunology techniques to identify Agents for Reversal of Tumor Immunosuppression (ARTIS). On Feb. 23, 2015, Bristol-Myers Squibb bought all the outstanding capital stock of Flexus for a potential consideration of $1.25 billion. $800 million was upfront and the additional $450 million depends on meeting developmental milestones.

April 6, 2015 - Device Space

Natera, Inc., a leader in non-invasive genetic testing, today announced that it has raised approximately $55.5 million in funding led by Silicon Valley life sciences investment firm Sofinnova Ventures. This financing round also includes participation from Capital Research and Management, Franklin Templeton Investments, Jennison Associates, RA Capital Management, Healthcor Partners and OrbiMed Advisors.

April 7, 2015 - Fierce Pharma

Serial acquirer Valeant may have a mini-me in Concordia Healthcare--but it's a mini-me that could just wind up luring investors away from the Quebec-based drugmaker. Some analysts see "a lot more opportunity left" in fellow Canadian pharma Concordia, which has struck 6 deals valued at about $1.5 billion since 2013, than they do in Valeant, StoneCastle Investment Management fund manager Bruce Campbell told Bloomberg. And Concordia CEO Mark Thompson, for his part, says he agrees. "I think a lot people see Concordia as a company that's got a lot of runway in front of it, whereas Valeant continues to execute, obviously, but their opportunity set has shrunk," he said. And when it comes to dealmaking, "I don't have any intention of stopping," he noted, adding that his company would be moving to close a tie-up in the third quarter of this year.

April 7, 2015 - Xconomy

San Diego's aTyr Pharma, which raised $76 million last week from a group of venture and institutional crossover investors, intends to raise an additional $82.2 million through an IPO, according to a regulatory filing yesterday. The company was founded in 2005 by two scientists at The Scripps Research Institute, Paul Schimmel and Xiang-Lei Yang, to commercialize their work in a new field of biology, known as physiocrine biology. Including the $76 million Series E round disclosed last week, aTyr has raised a total of roughly $184 million.

April 7, 2015 - Bio Space

The development of new antibiotics is quite rare. Nabriva Therapeutics AG, with headquarters in Vienna, Austria and King of Prussia, Penn., announced today that it had completed a $120 million Series B financing round. The initial tranche of $50 million will be used to take the company's lead product, lefamulin, into Phase III clinical trials. Nabriva Therapeutics focuses on pleuromutilin antibiotics. The company's lead product, lefamulin (BC-3781), is the first systemic pleuromutilin available for human use. It is entering a Phase III trial for the treatment of community-acquired bacterial pneumonia (CAPB). Pleuromutilins were discovered in 1950 and were first approved for veterinary use in 1979. The first pleuromutilin approved for humans was retapamulin in 2007, but was limited to topical application. Pleuromutilins inhibit bacterial protein synthesis by binding to unique sites on part of the ribosome. They are noted to have two advantages: low potential for cross-resistance with other antibacterial classes, and low potential for bacteria to develop resistance.

April 7, 2015 - Bio Space

Connecticut-based Arvinas LLC, a biotechnology company that focuses on protein degradation, announced a strategic collaboration with Merck & Co. on April 7, which will use PROTAC technology. Arvinas, which created PROTAC, claims that it will be utilized to degrade proteins to create novel therapeutics. Merck could elect to expand the collaboration to include additional disease targets, and Arvinas is set to receive up to $434 million if all research, development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments are made. "We look forward to working with Merck to create novel drugs to address difficult targets, and we believe this alliance will maximize the value of Arvinas' very exciting and innovative protein degradation technology," said Manuel Litchman, president and chief executive officer of Arvinas.

April 7, 2015 - Pharmaceutical Business Review

Bristol-Myers Squibb and Netherlands-based uniQure have entered into exclusive strategic collaboration to develop gene therapies for cardiovascular diseases. The deal will give BMS exclusive access to uniQure's gene therapy technology platform for the development of new treatments. The companies will collaborate on up to ten targets, mostly concentrating on cardiovascular therapies, such as a treatment to reinvigorate congestive heart failure patients' ability to synthesize S100A1.

April 8, 2015 - Bio Space

Hot on the heels of news that deal-happy AbbVie will pay $21 billion for Pharmacyclics, Inc., market participants are once again speculating that the company could go shopping again, this time suggesting that AbbVie snap up Acadia Pharmaceuticals for its promising new serotonin inverse agonist, Nuplazid. The asking prices? Likely a hefty $4.5 billion to sell, said one columnist Wednesday. Nuplazid (pimavanserin), hold a lot of potential to tackle a variety of diseases, and is indicated for Alzheimer's (ADP) and Parkinson's disease psychosis (PDP), and the lucrative and chronic schizophrenia market. That would make a deal between the two companies a great fit, wrote columnist Georgie Burdwell over at the Motley Fool this morning, because the two firms make "strategic" sense.

April 8, 2015 - Bio Space

Merger plans between North Carolina-based Targacept, Inc. and Catalyst Biosciences, Inc. are up in the air following Pfizer Inc.'s. termination of a 2009 agreement to develop a treatment to treat hemophilia and surgical bleeding indications. News of the termination sent Targacept's stock plummeting more than 10 percent this week. The stock is trading at about $2.51 per share as of this morning. In 2009 Pfizer's subsidiary Wyeth LLC and San Francisco-based Catalyst, a privately held company, entered into an agreement to develop Catalyst's recombinant human Factor VIIa variants, including lead drug candidate CB 813d, to treat patients suffering from hemophilia and surgical bleeding indications, Yahoo News reported this morning.

April 8, 2015 - Pharmaceutical Business Review

Compass Point Research has entered into an agreement with NDA Partners for the development of a new combination drug to treat migraine headaches. The drug sponsor, MultiCorp International, has retained Compass Point to manage the product development program. Under the deal, NDA Partners will provide the drug development and regulatory expertise needed to prepare a development plan for a 505(b)(2) NDA submission to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

April 9, 2015 - The Wall Street Journal

A pricey pill made by Gilead Sciences Inc. caused Medicaid spending on hepatitis C treatments to soar last year, even as most states restricted access to the drug, leaving many low-income patients untreated. State Medicaid programs spent $1.33 billion on hepatitis C therapies through the third quarter of last year, or nearly as much as the states spent in the previous three years combined, a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal data shows. The growth was primarily driven by Gilead's Sovaldi, a highly effective therapy that has a wholesale cost of $84,000 per person over the course of treatment, or $1,000 per pill. The price has sparked an outcry from insurers, members of Congress and others worried about the cost of treating an estimated three million Americans with hepatitis C, which can lead to cirrhosis or cancer of the liver.

April 9, 2015 - Bio Space

Berkeley Heights, N.J.-based Edge Therapeutics announced today that it had raised about $72.5 million from a Series C-1 and C-2 financing round. The Series C-1 round was completed in December 2014 and raised approximately $16.5 million and, according to the company, "included investments by a number of high net worth individuals, family offices and private foundations." The Series C-2 round was completed this month for $56 million and was led by Venrock with participation by Sofinnova Ventures, Janus Capital Management, funds managed by Franklin Advisers,l, New Leaf Venture Partners and BioMed Ventures.

April 9, 2015 - Bio Space

Silence Therapeutics raised $58.2 million to develop its genetic RNA therapeutics technologies, Reuters reported Thursday morning. The company raised the funds through two separate stock sales. The most recent sale this week raised $18.67 million in funds, while a stock sale April 2 generated $40.14 million.

Will Mylan's $29B bid spur other Perrigo suitors to enter the fray? 

April 10, 2015 - Fierce Pharma

More than a couple of analysts agree that there may be a company out there that's after Mylan--and that that could have prompted the company's $28.9 billion bid for Ireland's Perrigo. But now that Mylan's made its offer, could that spur other Perrigo offers, too? According to Bloomberg, yes. Mylan's proposal values the Dublin drugmaker at 26 times EBITDA, it notes--and while that's high, it's lower than the 30-plus times EBITDA other suitors have been willing to put forth for targets since pharma's deal frenzy began.

April 10, 2015 - Pharmaceutical Business Review

Indian drug-maker Cipla's UK subsidiary has entered into an agreement to acquire 100% stake in Duomed Produtos Farmaceuticos (Duomed), a Brazilian importer and distributor of pharma products, for BRL1.6m ($522,641). The deal is part of Cipla's front-end strategy and will expedite its product registrations in Brazil. Subject to certain closing deliverables, the transaction is expected to be completed by the end of May 2015.

April 10, 2015 - Fierce Biotech

Osteoarthritis biotech Carbylan Therapeutics came through with a $65 million IPO after significantly downsizing its ambitions, raising cash to support its treatment for knee pain. The company, headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, priced 13 million shares at $5 apiece, setting aside another roughly 2 million shares for its underwriters and setting its maximum deal value at nearly $75 million. Earlier this year, Carbylan set out to raise about $75 million by moving 5.8 million shares at between $12 and $14 each, but the company postponed that effort in February only to refile at a discount this month.