West Coast Biotech Roundup: KaloBios, Atreca, Acadia, Twist & extra
Alex Lash November 06, 2015
there have been drips and drabs of news out west this week, however compared to recent weeks with former Silicon Valley darling Theranos taking a beating, or 23andMe revving its engines, it’s been sleepy. the large exceptions come in the type of two Bay area firms entering into opposite instructions. the large green blinking arrow pointing up, if that’s your emoji of option for what’s scorching, goes to Stanford college spinout Atreca, which said it had rounded up $ 56 million for a sequence A. The pulsing pink arrow pointing down is for KaloBios, an antibody drug maker that hasn’t had good news in a long time.
Let’s to find out extra about these two firms, plus extra information from the Pacific facet of the u . s . a ., where you by no means understand what you might see as you finish up a tour of Alcatraz.
—KaloBios prescribed drugs of South San Francisco, CA, continues to spiral downward, asserting Thursday it might lay off 17 folks, more than half its employees, and proceed to search for a purchaser. it is going to additionally halt a medical trial of a blood cancer drug and certain lengthen its next quarterly salary report. 5 years ago, then-CEO David Pritchard talked about building a thousand million-dollar company. instead, KaloBios is limping badly. Pritchard left the company abruptly in January.
—Atreca of Redwood metropolis, CA, stated it has pushed its series A financing all the strategy to $ fifty six million, a determine that includes at least $ 6 million invested by way of the invoice and Melinda Gates foundation in 2012. As Xconomy pronounced at the time, Atreca spun out of Stanford college with know-how that surveyed the whole thing of quite a lot of folks’s immune responses, potentially to find higher antibody drugs or vaccines to combat cancer or infectious illness. The lead investor in the round is an undisclosed U.S. healthcare-centered fund.
—San Diego’s Acadia prescription drugs (NASDAQ: ACAD) stated Monday that the FDA has set a may 1 target date to imagine Acadia’s new drug application for pimavanserin (Nuplazid) as a therapy for Parkinson’s illness-affiliate psychosis. The date was once set as a priority review, which the FDA applies to medicine that may provide major advances in therapy or treatment the place no enough treatment exists.
—San Diego’s Regulus Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RGLS) said it has expanded development of its experimental drug candidate RG-one zero one to deal with hepatitis C underneath a collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK).
– synthetic DNA maker Twist Biosciences of San Francisco closed a handle Ginkgo Bioworks of Boston to promote Ginkgo one hundred million base pairs of artificial DNA, which the companies declare is 10 % of the total capability worldwide. Ginkgo mentioned it could use the raw subject matter to design organisms that lend a hand produce new fragrances, foods, and industrial merchandise.
—Shares of San Diego’s Kura Oncology (NASDAQ: KURA) declined moderately Thursday, its first day of buying and selling on the Nasdaq change. the company, which is growing new medication for solid tumors and blood cancers, priced its IPO final night time—promoting 6.25 million shares at $ eight a share to raise a total of $ 50 million, well below its original plan.
—contemporary off its October IPO, antibody drug developer CytomX Therapeutics (NASDAQ: CTMX) of South San Francisco, CA, mentioned lately it will collaborate with MD Anderson most cancers heart of Houston to create new cell treatment options that use CytomX’s antibody expertise to hone in additional precisely on cancer pursuits.
—Juno Therapeutics (NASDAQ: JUNO) signaled confidence that its experimental T cell cancer remedies would continue growth toward marketing approval through hiring a first-rate commercial officer, Bob Azelby. Azelby used to be prior to now in charge of Amgen’s oncology industry.
—VistaGen Therapeutics of South San Francisco, CA, has dosed the primary patient in its phase 2a trial of its lead compound, AV-101, to deal with depression.
—UC San Diego said a $ 5 million present from ResMed (NYSE: RMD) founder and chairman Peter Farrell will support sleep drugs research and care at the UC San Diego faculty of medication. San Diego-based totally ResMed develops medical gear and devices for sleep-disordered respiratory and related respiratory issues.
—clinical practice software maker quality systems (NASDAQ: QSII) of Irvine, CA, agreed to purchase San Diego-based HealthFusion Holdings for a minimum of $ a hundred sixty five million. HealthFusion develops net-based totally device for physicians, hospitals, and clinical billing services and products. Contingent payments could in the end add as a lot as $ 25 million to the deal.
—The San Diego Blood financial institution introduced a pilot software for volunteers to participate in genomics analysis as a part of the federal govt’s Precision drugs Initiative. The blood financial institution says 100 volunteers already have agreed to donate an additional vial of blood to be sequenced for the nationwide genomics research study.
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