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Sanofi-Aventis acquires exclusive global rights to CureDM's Pancreate

CureDM, LLC announced today that an agreement has been signed with Sanofi-Aventis for the exclusive worldwide license of Pancreate™, a novel islet neogenesis agent for the treatment of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. CureDM is a privately held biopharmaceutical company whose scientists discovered Pancreate™, a first-in-class human peptide therapeutic. Several key Composition of Matter and Use patents have been issued to CureDM for this potentially transforming treatment approach for diabetes.

9 Apr 2010

Sagent Pharmaceuticals raises $40M through Series B financing

Sagent Pharmaceuticals, a privately held specialty pharmaceutical company, announced today that it has raised $40 million through two tranches of a strategic Series B financing. In this round, a $10 million investment was made by Zhejiang Hisun Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (Hisun), and the remaining $30 million was contributed by an unnamed China-focused private equity investment fund. To date, including this financing, Sagent has raised $153 million in equity capital.

9 Apr 2010

Fate Therapeutics to acquire Ottawa biotechnology company Verio Therapeutics

Fate Therapeutics, Inc. announced today a definitive agreement to acquire Verio Therapeutics Inc., a privately held biotechnology company based in Ottawa, Ontario, which is developing drug candidates targeting the activation of endogenous stem cells. Verio Therapeutics is advancing the work of several of Canada's leading stem cell scientists, including Michael Rudnicki, Ph.D., FRSC, and Lynn Arthur Megeney, Ph.D., who have made breakthrough discoveries relating to muscle and pancreatic regeneration.

9 Apr 2010

The Harvard Drug Group sold to Court Square Capital Partners

H.I.G. Capital, L.L.C., a leading global private equity investment firm, today announced the successful sale of The Harvard Drug Group, LLC to Court Square Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in New York, NY.

9 Apr 2010

Crohn's disease: Remicade prescription to decrease, while Humira's increases

Decision Resources, one of the world's leading research and advisory firms for pharmaceutical and healthcare issues, finds that surveyed gastroenterologists estimate that (assuming no new data on adverse events emerge) they will treat fewer Crohn's disease patients with Centocor Ortho Biotech/Merck/Mitsubishi Tanabe's Remicade by the end of 2010, while the percentage of biologics-treated patients receiving Abbott/Eisai's Humira will increase to 36 percent.

8 Apr 2010

Cubist Pharmaceuticals initiates dosing in Phase 2 trial with CB-183,315 for diarrhea due to CDAD

Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leading acute care therapeutics company, today announced the enrollment and dosing of the first subject in its Phase 2 trial with CB-183,315, an antibacterial drug candidate intended to treat patients with a severe and sometimes life-threatening diarrhea caused by Clostridium difficile known as C. difficile-associated diarrhea, or CDAD. The trial is expected to enroll more than 200 subjects at 28 sites in the United States and Canada.

8 Apr 2010

OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals recognized with BIOTECanada's Gold Leaf Award

OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today that the Company will be presented with BIOTECanada's Gold Leaf Award as biotech company of the year. The award recognizes a biotech company that has distinguished itself from its peers with strong overall performance as a company, demonstrated leadership and shown significant achievement.

8 Apr 2010

GETA receives "Fast Track" designation from FDA for Tesetaxel: BeaconEquity.com

BeaconEquity.com announces an investment report featuring biopharmaceutical company Genta Inc. The report includes financial, comparative and investment analyses, and industry information you need to know to make an educated investment decision.

8 Apr 2010

Telaprevir-based regimens increase rates of SVR in patients with genotype 1 HCV infection

In a clinical trial known as PROVE 3 published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, treatment with telaprevir-based regimens significantly increased rates of sustained viral response (SVR) in patients with genotype 1 hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection who did not achieve SVR with at least one prior course of pegylated-interferon and ribavirin therapy.

8 Apr 2010

Cempra Pharmaceuticals announces schedule of poster presentations at ECCMID 2010

Cempra Pharmaceuticals today announced its schedule of poster presentations at the 20th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Disease (ECCMID) in Vienna, Austria, on April 10-13, 2010.

8 Apr 2010

USPTO allows Alnylam Pharmaceuticals' new claims from Woppmann et al. patent series

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leading RNAi therapeutics company, announced today that the United States Patent Office (USPTO) has allowed a patent (Application No. 10/560,336) for the Woppmann et al. patent series, entitled "Double-stranded ribonucleic acid with increased effectiveness in an organism." The newly allowed patent includes 31 claims broadly covering compositions and methods, including pharmaceutical compositions, for small interfering RNAs (siRNAs), the molecules that mediate RNAi.

8 Apr 2010

Synta Pharmaceuticals to present posters on STA-9090 and elesclomol at AACR 2010

Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp., a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing, and commercializing small molecule drugs to treat severe medical conditions, today announced that Synta will present multiple posters at the American Association for Cancer Research 101st Annual Meeting 2010 to be held April 17-21, 2010 in Washington, DC.

8 Apr 2010

Phase III trial of brentuximab vedotin for post-transplant Hodgkin lymphoma initiated

Seattle Genetics, Inc., Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited and its wholly owned subsidiary Millennium: The Takeda Oncology Company today announced the initiation of a phase III clinical trial of brentuximab vedotin (SGN-35) for post-transplant Hodgkin lymphoma patients. Brentuximab vedotin is an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) targeted to CD30, which is expressed on malignant Hodgkin lymphoma cells.

8 Apr 2010

Roche NimbleGen to implement GMP for DNA microarrays suite

Roche NimbleGen, announced today a company-wide initiative to implement Good Manufacturing Processes (GMP) for its suite of DNA microarrays. The implementation of GMP will cover the full scope of processes from development through manufacturing and will include all locations. The company plans on achieving GMP compliance followed by subsequent submission for clearance or approval of select array products to the US Food and Drug Administration.

8 Apr 2010

Biocartis closes Series 'B' equity financing round

Biocartis SA, a biotech company active in the field of personalized medicine and focused on fast, multiplexed and fully integrated molecular diagnostics based on its proprietary micro-technology and sample preparation platforms, today announced the successful closing of a Series B equity financing round. The Company raised EUR 30 million (~ USD 41.3 million) from its current shareholder base of leading life science investors and two new strategic investors from the pharmaceutical/diagnostic industry.

From Biocartis 8 Apr 2010

Angiotech Pharmaceuticals acquires manufacturing, intellectual property rights from Haemacure

Angiotech Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical and medical device company, today announced the closing of its acquisition of certain product candidates and technology assets of Haemacure Corporation. Haemacure has been involved in proceedings under Canada's Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code.

8 Apr 2010

Debiopharm Group, Biocartis sign investment agreement

Debiopharm Group, a Swiss-based global biopharmaceutical group of companies with a focus on the development of innovative prescription drugs that target unmet medical needs, and which has embarked in the field of companion diagnostics with a view to progressing in the area of personalized medicine, today announced the signature of an investment agreement with Biocartis.

8 Apr 2010

Results of M118 EMINENCE clinical trial published in Circulation

Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotechnology company specializing in the characterization and engineering of complex mixture drugs, today announced that the results of the M118 EMINENCE clinical trial have published in Circulation.

8 Apr 2010

Star Scientific completes Research and Royalty Agreement with SRQ Bio

Star Scientific announced today that it has completed a "Research and Royalty Agreement" with the Roskamp Institute's affiliate, SRQ Bio, LLC, under which the Institute will conduct research on a compound developed by the company's Rock Creek Pharmaceutical subsidiary that medical researchers at the Institute believe may have an application in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

8 Apr 2010

Charter Medical introduces Bio-Pak Cell Culture bags

Charter Medical, Ltd., a division of Lydall, Inc., today announced the launch of Bio-Pak® Cell Culture bags for biotech and pharmaceutical processing. These bags are designed to provide a stable cell culture environment to enhance cell growth and viability. They are made from Charter's high performance Clear-Pak® film, a single web, multi-layer film with superior gas barrier properties.

8 Apr 2010