Conatus Pharmaceuticals said Monday that it would cut its staff by 40 percent and consider a sale or merger after a drug it was testing as a treatment for an increasingly common form of chronic liver disease failed to beat a placebo in a mid-stage clinical trial—the latest letdown in a number of trial failures. […]

Editing human DNA has entered the public consciousness in a big way in recent years with its increasing use in laboratories—and, in recent news that shocked the scientific community, in embryos—of tools such as CRISPR-Cas9. Locana, a gene therapy biotech in San Diego, is taking what it describes as a “parallel path” to developing therapeutics […]

Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical (NASDAQ: RARE) has promoted Erik Harris to executive vice president and chief commercial officer. Harris joined the Novato, CA-based rare disease drugs developer in 2017 as senior vice president, head of North American commercial operations. His experience also includes posts at Crescendo Bioscience and Intermune. Last year, Ultragenyx won FDA approval for burosumab […]

There’s a speed dating game of sorts happening as pharmaceutical companies that have approved cancer immunotherapies are testing their medications in combination with experimental drugs in hopes of reaching more patients. San Diego’s Oncolytics Biotech (NASDAQ: ONCY) has been an active participant in those combination efforts, with multiple pharmaceutical companies pairing its lead drug candidate, […]

Stoke Therapeutics is the latest biotech company to debut on Wall Street, raising $142 million to test an experimental therapy for a rare form of epilepsy. Stoke does not yet have any human data to show investors, but the Bedford, MA, company was still able to sell more shares than it planned—and at a higher […]

Invitae, a maker of a wide array of low-cost genetic medical tests, has reached a deal to acquire Singular Bio to expand its ability to screen babies for disease during the early months of pregnancy. Invitae (NYSE: NVTA) said Monday it will pay $55 million in cash and stock to acquire privately held Singular Bio. […]

Unum Therapeutics (NASDAQ: UNRX) has promoted Jessica Sachs to chief medical officer. Sachs has served as vice president of clinical sciences at the Cambridge, MA, drug developer since 2017. Her experience also includes positions at Takeda Pharmaceutical (NYSE: TAK). Sachs, who will start her new role on July 15, is succeeding Michael Vasoncelles, who has left […]

It’s notoriously tough for experimental psychiatric drugs to succeed in clinical tests. BlackThorn Therapeutics wants to show that an AI-driven, precision approach can make it easier, and today it’s added another $76 million to get the chance to prove it. The new Series B round will give San Francisco-based BlackThorn—a startup spun out of the […]

Software is playing a growing role in clinical trials, and over the years it’s been introduced as a tool to help enroll patients, collect data, and analyze results. But one aspect of clinical trial record-keeping has been stubbornly stuck on paper—the reporting of data to the patients who volunteer for the studies. TrialAssure, a Canton, […]

Oncternal Therapeutics has joined the growing ranks of San Diego biotechs to go public, but it didn’t go through an IPO to get there. The San Diego-based company said Monday that it completed a reverse merger with GTx, a Memphis, TN biotech whose market value plummeted last fall after its lead drug candidate failed a […]

We at Xconomy were thrilled to see such a great turnout at our first-ever awards gala in San Diego. About 250 people from the local life sciences community filled a ballroom at Estancia La Jolla Hotel & Spa (see photos above). As Greg Huang, Xconomy’s editor in chief, said in his opening remarks before a […]

Two executives at software company Tealium were recognized Thursday with a regional “Entrepreneur of the Year” award from EY for their leadership of the rapidly growing San Diego-based tech firm, which recently raised $55 million in outside investment. Tealium CEO Jeff Lunsford and Mike Anderson, its founder and CTO, were jointly given the Software category […]