The Cross-Border Biotech Blog

Biotechnology, Health and Business in Canada, the United States and Worldwide

Monthly Archives: February 2010

This Week in the Twitterverse: Weekend Reading

Here are some good tidbits to catch up on over the weekend in case you missed them the first time around on @crossborderbio: RT @Equicom: NEWS: ConjuChem Files for Restructuring. http://bit.ly/aNfuWC 18 hours ago @randypicker Student: 24-0. Securities lawyer: past performance not= future results. Canadian: Better get a new calculator by Sunday! 20 hours ago As long as whole-genome [...]

Friday Science Review: February 26, 2010

A few medical research applications this week… Personalized Medicine – for Lung Cancer: To develop a personalized medicine approach to treating non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), researchers generated a xenograft model where they implant human tumour tissue into the renal capsule of a host mouse.  As the tumour establishes itself, the mouse then becomes the [...]

Cephalon-Ception’s Canadian Connection: Great News for Lumira Capital and McMaster in $250 million Option Deal

At the beginning of 2009, when Ception Therapeutics was working on mid-stage trials of its lead compound, it struck an option deal with Cephalon (NASDAQ: CEPH): $100 million up-front, and an option to acquire the rest of Ception for $250 million more.  This week, Cephalon exercised the option after taking a look at Phase II results [...]

Monday Biotech Deal Review: February 22, 2010

There was a lot of follow-up among Canadian biotech deals this week: letters of intent turning into definitive agreements, merged companies turning to consolidation, bids launched on schedule and wrapped up; as well as an average crop of new M&Eh and securities.  Start things off with an interesting (cross-border!) twist to the SIFT/SR&ED deals we’ve [...]

This Week in the Twitterverse: Weekend Reading

Here are some good tidbits to catch up on over the weekend in case you missed them the first time around on @crossborderbio: RT @ogilvyrenault: Convery and Chung contribute to @MaRSDD white paper on legal innovations in social entrepreneurship http://bit.ly/amRrY4  Oncothyreon $ONTY signs $8.4m SIFT/SR&ED arrangement http://bit.ly/981bBO like SemBioSys, ConjuChem, Vasogen http://bit.ly/cBL2qV  Labopharm closes $20m [...]

Friday Science Review: February 19, 2010

Hunks and pigs highlight this week’s research wrap-up… HUNKs Stop Cancer Metastasis: Researchers screening tumour cells found that expression of the enzyme HUNK (Hormonally Up-regulated Neu-associated Kinase) is significantly lower in cancers.  When they reconstituted HUNK into metastatic cancer cells, it decreased their metastastic potential when tested in mouse cancer models.  Its actions block the [...]

Biotech Trends Update — Personalized Medicine: The Limits of Genomic Analysis

A great report on GenomeWeb yesterday by Andrea Anderson reviews two JAMA papers that failed to show a clinically useful role for SNP genetic testing in predicting heart disease risk.  Instead, “traditional risk information based on factors such as family history and plasma biomarker levels were better for predicting heart disease.” Anderson ties these results back [...]

Biotech Trends Update — Commercialization by Foundations: $500k to AVI BioPharma from DMD Organizations

Continuing a trend by nonprofits to invest directly in commercialization of relevant products, CureDuchenne and the Foundation to Eradicate Duchenne each awarded grants of $250,000 to AVI BioPharma, Inc. (NASDAQ: AVII) to support continued research and development of the Company’s drug candidates for the treatment of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). One interesting note here is the collaboration [...]

Monday Biotech Deal Review: February 15, 2010

A busy Monday Deal Review is headlined by Labopharm and ProMetric on the securities front, MDS’ final divestiture on the M&Eh front and Biovail and Bioniche on the licensing front, and there’s lots more activity behind those for over $100 million of deals.  Check out all the details (and the witty headlines)

This Week in the Twitterverse: Weekend Reading

Here are some good tidbits to catch up on over the weekend in case you missed them the first time around on @crossborderbio: RT @SternIR @ldtimmerman Biotech heavy hitters Westphal,Dipp,Aldrich start new fund. Track record speaks for itself http://xrl.us/bgvu9x RT @PharmProEditor: Bioniche Achieves Two Additional Milestones Under Endo Licensing Agreement http://bit.ly/9Zut0N RT @FierceBiotech: Melnyk’s Trimel [...]

Friday Science Review: February 12, 2010

New Discovery for Neonatal Diabetes: Researchers uncovered an important role for the Rfx6 gene.  Its integrity is required for normal development of the islets of Langerhans cells in the pancreas that produces important hormones including insulin.  Genetic mutations found in Rfx6 are the cause of severe neonatal diabetes where there are no insulin producing islets [...]

Should FDA Special Protocol Assessments be Public?

A provocative post by Matthew Herper at Forbes’ The Science Business Blog this week argues that special protocol assessments (SPAs) should be public.  SPAs are the FDA’s way of pre-approving a clinical trial design, so that a company can conduct its trials secure in the knowledge that the FDA won’t later withhold approval based on a design flaw. [...]

If You License IP in Canada, You Need to Know About Recent BIA/CCAA Amendments

Adapted from a bulletin by my colleagues Evan Cobb and Brad Newman: In the U.S., Section 365(n) of the bankruptcy code provides protection to licensees in the event their licensor becomes insolvent.  Canadian law has not historically had that protection, forcing licensors to set up dedicated IP holding companies or other bankruptcy-remote structures to protect [...]

Monday Biotech Deal Review: February 8, 2010

This week’s Canadian biotech deals feature a new private placement, two medical device acquisitions, a truly dedicated CEO, some HIV funding from Merck. Seeking redemption?  

This Week in the Twitterverse: Weekend Reading

Here are some good tidbits to catch up on over the weekend in case you missed them the first time around on @crossborderbio: RT @ogilvyrenault: New Insider Reporting Regime to Take Effect in Canada http://bit.ly/bmAUJq 1 day ago Progeria Research Found’n, heavily involved in commercialization, completes trial enrollment with ARRA/NIH funding http://bit.ly/bt4ter 1 day ago TSX Venture Exchange Announces [...]

Friday Science Review: February 5, 2010

Several neurological related stories this week and quantum biology? Glial Cells – They’ll turn against you: An unusual molecule can turn glial cells, which normally surround neurons, into killer cells that attack the neurons they are suppose to protect.  Researchers made the surprising discovery of proNGF’s role while trying to figure out its function in [...]

Biotech Trends Update: Costs Savings from Personalized Medicine Sought by PBMs, Employers, Pharma Face Legal and Privacy Hurdles

When AstraZeneca announced a companion diagnostics collaboration recently, their head of oncology development said the goal was to get “the right treatment, to the right patient, the first time,” a nice turn of phrase* that is becoming a chorus in the healthcare industry. This week, giant PBM Medco purchased DNA Direct, saying “[o]ur whole thing at Medco [...]

Biotech Trends Update: Teva’s BLA for Neupoval is Accepted at the FDA

Teva’s decision last year to submit a full biologic license application (BLA) for Neupoval looks positively prescient today.  Teva’s product is already sold in the EU as a biosimilar to Amgen’s Neupogen, but a U.S. biosimilars pathway is stalled along with the rest of health reform and today, the FDA accepted Teva’s BLA, clearing the way for a review of [...]

Monday Biotech Deal Review: February 1, 2010

Canadian biotech companies were busy making and closing deals this week, with $44 million raised, four new licensing and collaboration deals, and particularly big weeks for Ospens and the MDS/Dahaner transaction.

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