Imara has hired Willem Scheele to serve as its as chief medical officer. Before joining the Cambridge, MA, biotech, Scheele was executive director and clinician group lead in rare diseases for Pfizer (NYSE: PFE). Scheele’s new role at Imara follows the company’s recent $63 million Series B round of funding. Imara emerged from biotech accelerator […]

Precision BioSciences has joined the club of publicly traded gene editing biotech companies, raising $126 million in its stock market debut. On Wednesday evening, Durham, NC-based Precision Bio sold 7.9 million shares for $16 apiece, which was right in the middle of its targeted price range. Those shares are expected to begin trading on the […]

—Millendo Therapeutics, an Ann Arbor-based biopharmaceutical company developing treatments for rare diseases, has initiated a Phase 2b/3 clinical study investigating livoletide (AZP-531) in patients with Prader-Willi syndrome. The study will evaluate the safety and efficacy of the drug on food-related behaviors—primarily hyperphagia, the excessive hunger which is a hallmark of the disease—in Prader-Willi patients. The […]

Aldeyra Therapeutics has disclosed positive results from the first of multiple Phase 3 studies of a new type of inflammation-fighting medicine the Lexington, MA, company has been testing in a variety of conditions. The study Aldeyra (NASDAQ: ALDX) reports on this morning is a Phase 3 trial called “Alleviate,” which tested its drug reproxalap against […]

Turning Point Therapeutics, which is developing targeted cancer drugs for patients whose tumors resist other precision therapies, has outlined plans for an IPO. The company, which started operations in 2014, has raised nearly $148 million since inception. It is headed by Athena Countouriotis, who joined the company in May as its chief medical officer, then […]

Another once-promising drug for Alzheimer’s disease has failed. And the news is devastating for the drug’s developer, Biogen (NASDAQ: BIIB), which went all in on a high-stakes gamble that its treatment, aducanumab, might succeed where so many others haven’t. This morning, Biogen reported that it is stopping two parallel, highly anticipated Phase 3 studies in […]

A Chicago-based private equity firm has tapped the former head of NuVasive and finance chief of GreatCall to start a new healthcare company in San Diego. The company, Corza Health, is headed by Greg Lucier, most recently CEO at NuVasive, and backed by the PE firm, GTCR, with money from its $5.25 billion Fund XII. […]

The FDA has just made brexanolone (Zulresso) the first medicine approved specifically for post-partum depression, a potentially devastating disorder that afflicts roughly one in every seven new mothers in the U.S., according to the American Psychological Association Now the drug’s owner, Sage Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SAGE), of Cambridge, MA, must convince doctors to prescribe and new […]

Douglas Pagán, chief financial officer of Paratek Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: PRTK) since 2017, is resigning to take a role at an undisclosed early-stage biopharmaceutical company. The Boston company said Monday that Pagán’s last day will be April 5. He has entered into a consulting agreement through Dec. 23 to help with the transition of his responsibilities […]

A global pharmaceutical company based in France has licensed software developed by San Diego digital health startup CureMatch that aims to help cancer doctors customize the combination of drugs they prescribe to patients based on mutations in cancer DNA. CureMatch was founded in 2015 to commercialize technology developed at the UC San Diego Moores Cancer […]

It’s time to catch up on Wisconsin innovation news: —Jason Franklin will manage the Wisconn Valley Venture Fund, a $100 million fund formed last August by Foxconn Technology Group and three leading Wisconsin businesses and organizations: Advocate Aurora Health, Northwestern Mutual, and Johnson Controls (NYSE: JCI). Foxconn, a Taiwanese manufacturing giant, has said it’s building […]

Whittemore Tingley has been appointed chief medical officer of Tenaya Therapeutics. Tingley comes to the South San Francisco, CA, biotech from Cytokinetics (NASDAQ: CYTK), where he was vice president of clinical research, cardiology. Tenaya spun out of the nonprofit Gladstone Institutes in 2016 to develop regenerative medicine treatments for heart failure.