Ardelyx (NASDAQ: ARDX) has added Susan Rodriguez to its C suite as the company’s first chief commercial officer. Rodriguez was most recently president of the branded division of Tolmar, a merged entity created from Tolmar Pharmaceuticals and its sister companies. She previously served as the founding CEO of Tolmar Pharma. Before Tolmar Rodriguez held various […]

The US Health and Human Services agency isn’t ready to go all in on “pull” incentives to encourage the development of new antibiotics, the agency indicated in response to a new Government Accountability Office report. “It is still unclear whether post-market financial incentives should necessarily be part of HHS’s forthcoming strategic framework to further incentivize […]

It may seem like an unlikely link but the body’s response to arthritis may hold answers for better cancer drugs, says Luis Voloch, chief technology officer of startup Immunai. Immune cells respond to both conditions, but in different ways. Insights into the response for one disease could inform the treatment of the other, he says. […]

Artax Biopharma has appointed Joseph Lobacki as its new chief executive officer. Lobacki’s prior experience includes roles at Sanofi Genzyme, Medivation, Verastem (NASDAQ: VSTM), and Micromet, which was later acquired by Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN). He succeeds company co-founder Damia Tormo, who has served as Artax’s CEO since its 2013 founding. The company says Tormo will […]

In every National Football League game, athletes must accomplish two difficult things that rest at opposite ends of the spectrum: rigor and speed. If their movements are off by even half a second, they risk being tackled by their opponent. Game over. In this COVID-19 day and age, believe it or not, the NFL serves […]

Genfit, once considered among the frontrunners in the biotech race to commercialize a treatment for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), has come up short. The French company said Monday that its investigational treatment, elafibranor, did not meet the main goal of a late-stage trial evaluating its ability to resolve the fatty liver disease without worsening related scarring. […]

Eil Lilly received accelerated FDA approval Friday for a drug that treats advanced cancers carrying a certain genetic signature. It’s the latest targeted cancer therapy to pass the regulatory bar and the first that addresses tumors characterized by aberrations in one particular gene. The gene in question, RET, produces a protein involved in cell signaling. […]

Trovagene (NASDAQ: TROV), which started out as a diagnostics company, has renamed itself Cardiff Oncology to better reflect its focus on the cancer drug it is advancing in three clinical trials. In 2017 the San Diego area-based biotech made the first step in its transformation into a drug development-focused organization, licensing rights to an investigational […]

PTC Therapeutics has reached an agreement to acquire Censa Pharmaceuticals and its lead asset, an experimental metabolic disorder therapy that is now being prepared for a pivotal study. The deal, announced after the market close Wednesday, will bring South Plainfield, NJ-based PTC (NASDAQ: PTCT) another compound for its pipeline of rare disease drugs. Wellesley, MA-based […]

Kura Oncology is discontinuing development of one of its three clinical-stage cancer drug candidates amid pandemic-related impacts to its clinical trial plans. The decision to end work on the drug, KO-947, comes after San Diego-based Kura (NASDAQ: KURA) was successful in lifting a partial clinical hold placed on a Phase 1 trial of the drug […]

Virtually unknown just a few months ago, the COVID-19 pandemic has already resulted in over 239,000 deaths worldwide—including over 67,000 in the United States alone. Now, emerging reports suggest that as many as one third of patients with severe COVID-19 infection requiring intensive care may also be battling another life-threatening infection: invasive aspergillosis, a deadly […]

If you’re looking for a Lyme disease vaccine, you can choose from among several—for your dog. A vaccine for humans hasn’t been available for years and few companies have tried to fill that void. Valneva has advanced its Lyme vaccine candidate to mid-stage clinical testing, and the company now has the help of drug giant […]