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 […]

The FDA on Monday approved a pill from Allergan to treat migraine in adults. The treatment, ubrogepant (Ubrelvy), is part of a new class of migraine medicines designed to block calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), a protein thought to play a role in pain transmission. Ubrogepant is the first CGRP drug in tablet form to get […]

Swiss biopharma Roche is betting more than $1 billion that Sarepta Therapeutics, which recently won FDA approval for its second RNA medicine for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, will get its lead gene therapy treatment across the finish line too. The deal, one of the biggest ever US biopharma licensing agreements, gives Roche the right outside of […]

Encoded Therapeutics added two people to its C-suite this week. The South San Francisco-based company named Nancy Boman as its chief regulatory officer and Monique Bobadilla as its chief people and culture officer. Encoded, which raised $104 million in June, aims to develop gene therapies to treat diseases the technique currently can’t address. Its lead […]

When it comes to Alzheimer’s disease, Biogen isn’t putting all of its eggs in the same basket. In the latest development of a multi-drug and multi-disease collaboration, the company has licensed an experimental Ionis Pharmaceuticals compound that works in a different way than the therapies currently in its pipeline for neurodegenerative diseases. On Thursday, Ionis […]

2020 will be a big year for ArcherDX, says its CEO on the heels of raising $55 million to advance its companion diagnostics platform—which is intended to make precision medicine an option for patients in earlier stages of disease. Headquartered in Boulder, CO, the company will use the Series C funds to expand its global […]

Nimbus Therapeutics has named Annie Chen to the role of president at its subsidiary, Nimbus Lakshmi. Chen is currently chief medical officer of Cambridge, MA-based Nimbus Therapeutics, and she will continue serving in that role. The company uses software to discover and design new drugs, some of which are developed by its subsidiaries. Nimbus Lakshmi […]

Organovo raised millions of dollars from investors to fuel its goal of developing 3D “bioprinted” human tissues for use in people with end-stage liver disease and other life-threatening illnesses. But the San Diego company fell short of bringing its lead regenerative medicine program into clinical trials, and now it is charting a course as a […]

A prescription pill derived from fish-oil pill received the regulatory nod Friday to expand its use as a supplementary treatment, alongside statins, to more patients at risk of heart attack or stroke. The FDA approved the Amarin Pharma drug, icosapent ethyl (Vascepa), for use as a secondary treatment for adults who are taking statins and have […]

MicroRNA therapies developer miRagen Therapeutics is scaling back work on its most advanced cancer drug candidate and shifting resources to a compound being developed to treat fibrosis in the lungs. The pipeline shuffle will be accompanied by a corporate shakeup. Boulder, CO-based miRagen (NASDAQ: MGEN) is also laying off some of its staff. The company […]