Daré Bioscience launched in 2015 with the aim of assembling a portfolio of novel women’s health products intended to pique interest from major pharmaceutical companies. Now the San Diego-based company has inked its first deal with Big Pharma, signing an agreement with German biopharma Bayer for its lead asset, a monthly non-hormonal form of birth […]

Neurocrine is doubling down on epilepsy, striking its second agreement in as many months with a new deal that grants it the option to license an investigational treatment for a rare form of the disease. The San Diego-based drug developer last month struck a deal with Xenon Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: XENE) that added an experimental treatment […]

RNA medicines can treat some diseases by hitting targets otherwise considered “undruggable” by small molecules and biologics, but protecting the nucleic acids from degradation and getting the therapies to where they are needed in the body can be difficult. San Diego startup DTx Pharma has raised $10.6 million to advance technology it has developed that […]

Food gurus tout the benefits of eating spinach and kale, but some people are better off leaving them on the plate. A molecule in these leafy greens contributes to hyperoxaluria, a condition characterized by kidney stones at first and serious organ damage later. Novome Biotechnologies is developing a gut microbiome treatment for hyperoxaluria. The company […]

Novo Holdings is repositioning the strategic focus of its REPAIR Fund in order to provide later-stage support to its portfolio companies, as the struggling antibiotics industry faces a dearth of investment. The Danish investor launched its REPAIR Impact Fund in 2018. An acronym for “Replenishing and Enabling the Pipeline for Anti-Infective Resistance,” the fund has […]

In the past seven years BioIntervene has been working to develop “ultra-selective” compounds to target an adenosine receptor associated with pain relief. Now the San Diego-based biotech has $30 million and a chief scientific officer, Charles Cohen, to guide its lead compound, BIO-205, into human testing for neuropathic pain. The company announced the Series A […]

In the week leading up to Christmas, six drugs won FDA approvals. The decisions covered insomnia, migraine, and several different forms of cancer. The FDA’s final tally for the year totaled 48 new drug approvals. If you’re keeping score, that compares with 59 approvals in 2018 and 46 in 2017. Most of the nods went to […]

DNA sequencing machine maker Illumina will have to find another way to “read” long pieces of genetic material as well as short stretches, the genomic giant’s bailiwick. Its $1.2 billion proposal to acquire long-read capability by buying rival Pacific Biosciences ended Thursday following challenges from antitrust regulators. The deal foundered about 14 months after the […]

French VC firm Seventure is raising over €200 million in a second dedicated fund focused on the microbiome and says the therapeutic space will mature within the next three years. In March, France’s Seventure announced it is looking to raise €200 million ($220 million) in its Health for Life Capital II fund dedicated to the […]