It’s time to catch up on Wisconsin innovation news: —Jason Franklin will manage the Wisconn Valley Venture Fund, a $100 million fund formed last August by Foxconn Technology Group and three leading Wisconsin businesses and organizations: Advocate Aurora Health, Northwestern Mutual, and Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI). Foxconn, a Taiwanese manufacturing giant, has said it’s building […]

Whittemore Tingley has been appointed chief medical officer of Tenaya Therapeutics. Tingley comes to the South San Francisco, CA, biotech from Cytokinetics (NASDAQ: CYTK), where he was vice president of clinical research, cardiology. Tenaya spun out of the nonprofit Gladstone Institutes in 2016 to develop regenerative medicine treatments for heart failure.

Connect, a 34-year-old nonprofit which runs the well-known Springboard Accelerator Program for startups, announced Monday that it had tapped Silvia Mah, a San Diego investor and entrepreneur, as its new president. She succeeds Greg McKee, who served as president and CEO of the San Diego-based organization for five years before stepping down last month to […]

Spring has sprung, and it’s shaping up to be another busy season for San Diego’s life sciences community. As we head into the weekend, crossing our fingers that the seemingly endless rain showers will be replaced by our usual sunshine, here’s a quick rundown of some recent news developments. —ResMed (NYSE: RMD) acquired a South […]

Chinese pharma company BeiGene has agreed to pay Ambrx $10 million upfront to experiment with technology the biotech has developed in a bid accelerate BeiGene’s search for new protein drugs for cancer treatment. Ambrx says its technology is able to incorporate “non-natural” amino acids into cells like E. coli and CHO, two cell lines commonly […]

The oncology division of Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: GILD) is losing two of its leaders. Alessandro Riva, executive vice president of oncology therapeutics for the Foster City, CA, company, is leaving to become CEO of a Glenmark Pharmaceuticals spinout in Paramus, NJ. The yet-to-be-named Glenmark spinoff will take with it eight programs spanning cancer, immunology, and […]

Two months after insisting on Twitter that he wasn’t going anywhere, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced his resignation today. He leaves a record of health and medical regulation that was more active than critics who spoke out against his nomination in early 2017 might have expected. Gottlieb’s remit extended beyond drugs, of […]

Michael Taylor, president and CEO of Deciphera Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: DCPH) since 2014, is retiring. Starting on March 18, Taylor will move to a six-month role as senior advisor to the company to help with the transition of his responsibilities. He will also retain his seat on the Waltham, MA, company’s board of directors. The company […]

After years of boom times, the U.S. biopharmaceutical industry is dealing with unprecedented threats on several fronts: public backlash against high drug prices, slowing sales, and the possibility of more government regulation. In this Xconomy Special Report, our veteran biotech journalists Alex Lash and Ben Fidler bring you deep insights, based on conversations with key […]

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for state-supported entrepreneurial programs. On Wednesday, the Michigan Strategic Fund (MSF) approved $250,000 to support a new advanced computing hub at Wayne State University as part of the statewide Michigan Translational Research and Commercialization (MTRAC) program. MTRAC seeks to accelerate the transfer of technology developed at Michigan universities […]