January 19, 2015 - Xconomy

The word "story" gets ill treatment at events like the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. It often means an elevator pitch from a harried CEO to a distracted investor, or a few observations a journalist strings together with a headline, or Twitter snark trying to pass for insight. But we heard a real story on Sunday night from Martha Rhodes, a former advertising executive who has written a memoir of her treatment-resistant depression and the treatment that saved her life. Speaking at a dinner arranged by a Boston venture firm, Rhodes was a reminder that the short-attention span and shorthand skepticism that abounds at events like J.P. Morgan is, above all, a distraction.

January 19, 2015 - Device Space

DNA Electronics Ltd, the inventors of semiconductor DNA sequencing technology and developers of a new, revolutionary point-of-need test for blood infections, has on 15 January 2015 completed the acquisition of the entire issued share capital of nanoMR Inc. ('nanoMR'), an Albuquerque based developer of a novel system for rapid isolation of rare cells in the bloodstream for a total cash consideration of approximately $24 million by way of a merger under the laws of Delaware, USA. Integration of the two organisations is effective immediately, creating an 80+ strong team with facilities in the UK and the USA that will operate under the DNAe brand. The acquisition is a key strategic milestone for DNAe, enabling the Company to integrate nanoMR's unique immunomagnetic Pathogen Capture System (PCS) with its own Genalysis� PCR and semiconductor-based DNA sequencing technology to create a complete blood-to-result solution.

January 19, 2015 - Outsourcing Pharma

With a three-year growth rate of 348% and the addition of over 450 jobs from 2012 to 2014, CRO Clinipace is now chasing acquisitions after closing a $50m round of debt and equity financing.

January 19, 2015 - Device Space

Check-Cap, which is developing an ingestible imaging capsule for detecting colorectal cancer, announced terms for its IPO on Friday. The Isfiya, Israel-based company plans to raise $13 million by offering 1.2 million shares at a price range of $10 to $12. At the midpoint of the proposed range, Check-Cap would command a fully diluted market value of $131 million. Check-Cap, which was founded in 2009, plans to list on the NASDAQ under the symbol CHEK. Check-Cap initially filed confidentially on 7/3/2014. Chardan Capital Markets, Maxim Group LLC and Feltl and Company are the joint bookrunners on the deal.

January 20, 2015 - Fierce Pharma

Johnson & Johnson's new drugs came through again. Thanks to treatments from psoriasis-fighter Stelara to antipsychotic Invega Sustenna, the company's pharma sales were up a whopping 25% in the U.S. for 2014, and 15% worldwide, to $32.4 billion. CEO Alex Gorsky was quick to brag that J&J's prescription drugs unit is the biggest in the U.S. and the fastest-growing pharma in the business. That's a good thing for the company, particularly in the fourth quarter, because its pharma segment helped buoy less-than-fantastic results in consumer health, which only just brought some key brands back to full supply after 2010's spate of recalls, and its medical devices unit. Fourth quarter sales were down slightly overall, thanks in part to currency effects.

January 20, 2015 - Bio Space

India-based Piramal Enterprises Limited announced on Jan. 16 that it will acquire Coldstream Laboratories Inc. through its U.S. subsidiary for $30.65 million. A total of $5.65 million will go toward the purchase of a facility building leased to Coldstream, while the rest of the money will be for company shares. Coldstream, which develops and manufactures sterile injectable products, was created in 2007 by the University of Kentucky Research Foundation. Throughout its existence, Coldstream has been able to formulate and manufacture high potency and cytotoxic compounds including antibody drug conjugates. Currently, it operates out of Lexington, Ky.

January 20, 2015 - Device Space

Exactech, Inc., a developer and producer of bone and joint restoration products for hip, knee, shoulder and spine, announced today the acquisition of an industry-leading computer-assisted surgical technology development and manufacturing firm, Grenoble France-based BlueOrtho SAS. Exactech has partnered with BlueOrtho since 2009 to develop ExactechGPS� Guided Personalized Surgery system, which was introduced by Exactech in 2010 and fully commercialized in 2014. ExactechGPS currently supports Exactech's comprehensive knee systems with plans to expand its application to other segments of the company's portfolio.

January 20, 2015 - Device Space

Infraredx, which markets a FDA-cleared optical catheter that identifies lipid core coronary plaques, announced terms for its IPO on Tuesday. The Burlington, MA-based company plans to raise $56 million by offering 4 million shares at a price range of $13 to $15. At the midpoint of the proposed range, Infraredx would command a fully diluted market value of $213 million. Infraredx, which was founded in 1998 and booked $5 million in sales for the 12 months ended September 30, 2014, plans to list on the NASDAQ under the symbol REDX. RBC Capital Markets, Canaccord Genuity and BMO Capital Markets are the joint bookrunners on the deal. It is expected to price during the week of January 26, 2015.

January 20, 2015 - Bio Space

Strides Arcolab Limited announced today that it has entered a licensing agreement with Gilead Sciences, Inc. to market HIV drugs in developing countries. Through the licensing agreement, Strides will manufacture and distribute Tenofovir Alafenamide, a nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor. TAF has shown high antiviral efficacy at a dose that is 10 times lower than Viread, also known as tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, from Gilead Sciences. The product also has an improved renal and bone safety profile. With approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Strides will receive a technology transfer from Gilead. Currently, TAF has not been deemed safe in humans.

January 21, 2015 - Bio Space

Raleigh, N.C.-based Salix Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. has hired investment bank Centerview Partners Holdings LP to help the company assess its options for a potential sale. In November 2015, Salix was close to finalizing an acquisition agreement with Allergan Inc. when due diligence showed problems with Salix's inventory levels. During the company's third quarter earnings call it also indicated that key drugs had piled up inventory. This and other information caused Salix stock to drop more than 49 percent day-over-day. In addition to the failure of the Allergan deal, Salix ditched plans to acquire Italy's Cosmo Pharmaceuticals SpA. The reasons for this were changes in U.S. regulations regarding tax inversion deals, where a U.S. company buys a foreign company, then shifts its headquarters to the country with the lower tax rate.

January 21, 2015 - Fierce Pharma

Depomed has big plans for the Nucynta franchise it picked up last week from Johnson & Johnson for $1.05 billion, and they start with a relaunch. The California company says it will reintroduce Nucynta and Nucynta ER with a beefed-up field force of more than 250 reps, focusing on its dual mechanism of action as the only FDA-approved opioid for both chronic pain and nerve damage caused by diabetes. Depomed, which already boasts an established pain therapy lineup, says its current sales force targets overlap about 70% of the Nucynta prescriber base, which will help it leverage relationships with key prescribers. With the sales corps expansion, it's gearing up to take that number higher.

Step one for incoming Takeda CEO Christophe Weber: Reorganize. Step two? Scout deals, he said Wednesday. According to Weber, who will take the helm from chief exec Yasuchika Hasegawa when he's promoted from COO this June, Takeda won't let the industry's dealmaking wave pass it by, Reuters reports. And now that Weber has a company-wide rejig in the works, it's in a better position to be active, he said. "We don't want to be passive and we don't want to watch the train passing," he told the news service.

January 21, 2015 - Bio Space

Cash-flush biotech Alnylam Pharmaceuticals made news Tuesday when it said it aims to have three drugs on the market and 10 in clinical trials by the end of 2020, and will use a secondary stock offering of $450 million to fund that effort. That money will make it one of biotech's most cash-rich companies, funding it will need to capitalize on the "RNA Renaissance." The news comes a year neighboring Genzyme Corp. bought a 12 percent stake in the company for $700 million, as parent company Sanofi doubles down on late-stage clinical results.

January 21, 2015 - Pharma Times

Bangalore, India-based pharma Strides Arcolab has bagged non-exclusive rights to manufacture and distribute Gilead's HIV therapy Tenofovir Alafenamide (TAF), both as a single agent product and in combination with other drugs. Financial terms of the deal were not announced, but it was relived that the license granted to Strides is valid for 112 countries, which together account for more than 30 million people living with HIV.  And, as part of the deal, on US Food and Drug Administration approval of TAF Strides will receive a technology transfer from Gilead, enabling it to manufacture low-cost versions of the drug for developing countries.

January 21, 2015 - Bio Space

Massachusetts-based biotechnology company Curis, Inc. (CRIS) announced today that it has struck a deal with Aurigene Discovery Technologies Limited to develop and commercialize drug candidates for cancer treatment. As a result, Curis has agreed to make payments worth approximately $415 million to Aurigene. Additionally, Curis will pay Aurigene royalties on net sales ranging from high single digits to 10 percent in territories where it successfully commercializes products. Curis now has the option to exclusively license compounds once a development candidate is nominated. "We are thrilled to partner with Aurigene in seeking to discover, develop and commercialize small molecule drug candidates generated from Aurigene's novel technology and we believe that this collaboration represents a true transformation for Curis that positions the company for continued growth in the development and eventual commercialization of cancer drugs," said Ali Fattaey, president and chief executive officer of Curis. "The multi-year nature of our collaboration means that the parties have the potential to generate a steady pipeline of novel drug candidates in the coming years."

January 22, 2015 - Fierce Pharma

Everyone makes mistakes--Valeant CEO J. Michael Pearson included. And he's perfectly willing to admit it. After losing out on a months-long hostile pursuit of Allergan--which Actavis ultimately swooped in to snag for $66 billion--Pearson has ID'ed a couple of places he went wrong. Including one "major miscalculation." "Part of our thesis was that no one else would come in," he told the Financial Times. "We were looking more at the bigger companies--like Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi--and largely thinking they could pay all cash, which we couldn't.

January 22, 2015 - Bio Space

The soon-to-be first foreign chief executive of Takeda Pharmaceuticals is open to large deals that will help Japan's largest drugmaker reconfigure its focus and streamline its operations, he told Reuters Wednesday, and said he's been busy undertaking a "major review" of all of the firm's businesses. "We don't want to be passive and we don't want to watch the train passing," Christophe Weber told Reuters at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week. Originally lured away from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) last April, Weber became COO in June and is the incoming CEO for the 230-year-old Japanese company. "Organically, we are doing okay, but I wouldn't mind doing a few deals," Weber said. "Perhaps a deal would be small or perhaps big. It depends what is out there."

January 22, 2015 - Bio Space

The biosimilar boom is continuing Thursday, after Chinese startup Innovent Biologics said it has raised $100 million in a Series C funding round from a suite of venture capitalists intent on making the company a frontrunner for biotechs in the booming Asian market. Originally backed by Eli Lilly and Company's Lilly Asia Ventures, this round was led by Chinese VC shop Legend Capital, and included Singapore-based Temasek and two unnamed partners and two unnamed partners. They now join Fidelity Biosciences, Fidelity Growth Partners Asia, Lilly Asia Ventures and Frontline Bioventures in staking the company.

January 22, 2015 - Device Space

Virginia medical technology developer K2M announced on Wednesday that it will raise $40 million from stock sales, eight months after its $132 million IPO. The Leesburg-based company has developed ways of treating spinal diseases with devices for minimally invasive surgery for about a decade. The company posted a revenue of nearly $158 million, a loss of a little less than $38 million in the last fiscal year.

January 23, 2015 - Bio Space

Swiss biopharmaceutical company Novartis AG announced on Jan. 22 that it would be reviewing its Swiss cost base following the end cap on the franc, according to Reuters. Joe Jimenez, chief executive of Novartis, told the news source that the company will need to review its position in Switzerland and look at bolt-on acquisitions. "We'll have to take a hard look at what's in Switzerland and what could move outside," Jimenez told Reuters. Although the company has just 2 percent of its sales in Switzerland, it had 12 percent of its costs in the country in 2013. Jimenez went onto say that the company is seeing an upsurge in productivity as more drug approvals roll in.

January 23, 2015 - Bio Space

Aspen Pharmacare Holdings announced today that it has acquired the rights to Mono-Embolex from Novartis AG in a deal projected to be worth $142.3 million, according to Reuters. Mono-Embolex is a heparin-based anti-coagulant, sold in the same category as Aspen's Arixtra and Fraxiparine. Both of these drugs are meant to reducing the clotting ability of the body. Arixtra is specifically given to patients after undergoing hip, knee or stomach surgery.

January 23, 2015 - Bio Space

Eye drop therapeutics biotech Inotek Pharmaceuticals announced terms for its initial public offering Friday, saying in an updated filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it plans to raise $65 million by offering 4.6 million shares at a price range of $13 to $15-or a fully diluted market value of $200 million if calculated at the midpoint pricing range. The clinical stage Lexington, Mass.-based company is developing a small molecule eye drop therapy to treat glaucoma. If it can raise that higher number, it'll be one of the larger biotech IPOs debuted in the last year. When it does go public, it will join an avalanche of companies such as Juno Therapeutics (JUNO) and Kite that have capitalized on the booming biotech market to push valuations-and payouts-to an all-time high.

January 23, 2015 - Fierce Biotech

Palo Alto, CA's Carbylan Therapeutics has set terms for an IPO worth $75 million at its midpoint, working to get a treatment for osteoarthritis pain through late-stage development. The company plans to move 5.8 million shares at between $12 and $14 each, setting aside another 870,000 shares for its underwriters and tabbing a maximum deal value of $93.4 million. With the proceeds, Carbylan will pay for the ongoing Phase III studies of Hydros-TA, an injectable treatment for arthritic knee pain. The biotech expects to submit the drug for FDA review next year.

January 23, 2015 - Xconomy

The pending $16 billion deal that would see GlaxoSmithKline sell its cancer drugs to Novartis continues to pay dividends for an unlikely beneficiary-Boulder, CO-based Array BioPharma. Array (NASDAQ: ARRY) announced Friday that it has reached a definitive agreement with Novartis to acquire worldwide rights to encorafenib, a drug candidate to treat melanoma and colorectal cancer. The drug is in Phase 3 clinical testing. According to a release, Array only owes Novartis "a de minimis payment," and the Swiss pharmaceutical giant will pick up much of the bill to continue the 11 clinical trials that are underway.