San Antonio—Emtora Biosciences, a San Antonio biotech startup formerly known as Rapamycin Holdings, is planning to test its drug, eRapa, as a treatment for a rare genetic disease known as Familial Adenomatous Polyposis (FAP). Emtora plans to begin a Phase 2a trial in late 2019 for the condition, which affects 60,000 people in the United […]

Vividion Therapeutics, a biotechnology company that launched in 2017 around discoveries made in Scripps Research Institute labs, has raised $82 million in financing. Nextech Invest, a Swiss investment firm that funds companies developing cancer therapeutics, led the Series B round of funding. As part of the investment, Nextech partner Jakob Loven gets a board seat. […]

Drugs that treat dogs and cats are some of Elanco’s fastest growing products, and the animal health company is poised to make that category even bigger through a deal to buy pet medicines developer Aratana Therapeutics. Greenfield, IN-based Elanco (NYSE: ELAN) announced Friday an agreement to acquire Aratana (NASDAQ: PETX) in a stock deal valued […]

Lynne Kelley has joined X4 Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: XFOR) as chief medical officer, the same post she held at her former company, Histogenics (NASDAQ: HSGX). Kelley’s experience also includes positions at Senseonics (NASDAQ: SENS), Becton Dickinson (NYSE: BDX), Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB), and Boston Scientific (NYSE: BSX). Cambridge, MA-based X4’s lead drug, Mavorixafor, is being prepared for […]

Avidity Biosciences, a biotech developing drugs that deliver bits of RNA and DNA to cells to treat disease, has signed its first strategic pharmaceutical partner. Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY) is paying Avidity $20 million upfront—plus $15 million in equity—for the rights to use the La Jolla, CA, startup’s technology to try and develop new medicines. […]

With a second big clinical failure, Teva Pharmaceutical is abandoning efforts to extend the use of its approved migraine drug to the treatment of cluster headaches, a rarer form of headache that typically affects one side of the head around the eye or the temple. Teva (NYSE: TEVA) said Tuesday that an interim analysis of […]

Aduro Biotech (NASDAQ: ADRO) has appointed Dimitry Nuyten to serve as its chief medical officer. Nuyten comes to Berkeley, CA-based Aduro from Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), where he was vice president and immuno-oncology clinical development leader. Prior to Pfizer, Nuyten was an executive at Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY). Earlier this year, Aduro announced a corporate restructuring […]

Persistence and perseverance were the themes of two of our top stories this week. First there’s the story of Nationwide Children’s Hospital. The Columbus, Ohio, hospital chose to invest in gene therapy when the field was in its darkest days. After some ups and downs, the team it put in place helped advance some of […]

KSQ Therapeutics has appointed Beni Wolf to serve as chief medical officer. Wolf joins Cambridge, MA-based KSQ from Blueprint Medicines, where he was senior vice president, clinical development. His experience also includes posts at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: MACK), ImmunoGen (NASDAQ: IMGN), Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN), and Genentech. Cambridge, MA-based KSQ also named Douglas Pagán chief financial […]

When Novartis dissolved its gene and cell therapy unit a few years ago, a bunch of projects the Swiss pharma giant had incubated were tossed aside. One of them was the work of surgeon Suzanne Ildstad, who has spent decades trying to develop a new way to improve the health outcomes of patients who need […]

Trudy Vanhove has joined regenerative medicine biotech Surrozen as chief medical officer. Vanhove most recently worked at Jazz Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: JAZZ), where she was vice president of medical affairs as well as vice president, head of R&D search and evaluation. South San Francisco-based Surrozen is developing drugs that activate and regulate tissue repair in the […]

The gene therapy boom. The frustration of failure after failure in Alzheimer’s disease. The critical interplay between venture firms and “crossover” investors in a volatile, unpredictable macro-environment. The growing need for (and role of) diversity initiatives within the life sciences community—and the personal stories behind them. These are just some of the topics Xconomy will […]