Cancer Genetics’ IPO delayed amid Facebook frenzy

Posted under Blog, Cancer Genetics, Companies, Diagnostics, Funding, IPO, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, molecular diagnostics, Pharmaceuticals, Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Startups, Universities, Videos by Ryan McBride

Cancer Genetics has nixed plans to launch an initial public offering this week, having planned to raise $48 million to advance a pipeline of molecular diagnostics for cancer, Renaissance Capital reported Thursday. Last week Rib-X Pharmaceuticals delayed its own IPO, following a history of biotechs struggling to trade their shares on the public market. Seeking Alpha reasoned this week that Cancer Genetics' IPO might be small enough to slip through even though Wall Street has been bracing for the blockbuster maiden offering of Facebook. Guess not. Item

 

Rib-X Pharma delays IPO after price halved

Posted under antibiotics, Biotech IPO, Blog, Companies, Diagnostics, Funding, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Pharmaceuticals, Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Startups, Universities, Videos by rmcbride

Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, a New Haven, CT-based developer of antibiotics, opted to delay a planned May 9 initial public offering after chopping the price range of its shares for the maiden stock sale in half to $6 to $7, according to Renaissance Capital. Before postponing the IPO, Rib-X was aiming to raise $65 million in the offering. The biotech, a 2011 Fierce 15 company, is only the latest drug developer to struggle in its efforts to go public. Merrimack Pharmaceuticals ($MACK), also a 2011 Fierce 15 company, delayed an IPO before completing the offering earlier this year. Report

RNAi developer Arrowhead snags startup Alvos in stock deal

Posted under Arrowhead Research, Biogen Idec, Blog, Companies, Diagnostics, Funding, M&A, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Pharmaceuticals, Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, RNAi, Startups, Universities, Videos by rmcbride

Arrowhead Research has bought Alvos Therapeutics and the small company's peptides that home in on tumor targets. Alvos is getting 315,467 restricted shares in Arrowhead ($ARWR) common stock upfront, with $23.5 million in additional stock awards tied to development and regulatory milestones.

Alvos, previously called Mercator Therapeutics, boasts founders from MD Anderson Cancer Center and veteran biotech insiders Roy Lobb, a former Biogen Idec ($BIIB) scientist and co-founder of Avila Therapeutics (sold to Celgene ($CELG) for $350 million in January) as well as Mark Leuchtenberger, who is chief executive of antibiotics developer Rib-X Pharma, a 2011 Fierce 15 company. Alvos raised $2 million in a seed round in summer 2010 to license homing peptides from MD Anderson that have shown an ability to carry drugs to tumors while limiting side effects on healthy tissues.

Arrowhead, which bought Swiss drug giant Roche's ($RHHBY) RNA-interference (RNAi) assets last year, says Alvos' homing peptides could help the company deliver RNAi treatments into cancer cells and carry a variety of other anti-cancer drugs. One of the major challenges in RNAi drug development has been delivering the gene-silencing therapies to tissues deep in the body, and earlier efforts to achieve this have fallen short. The programs under development at Alvos (which had been operating in the Boston area at the time of its 2010 seed funding) will move to Arrowhead's R&D outpost in Madison, WI, according to the buyer.

Alvos, clearly, never matured as much as Lobb and Leuchtenberger's previous companies, and a vast majority of the payout from Arrowhead will depend on the future success of the biotech's programs. Leuchtenberger hasn't returned a message left on his cell phone this morning to discuss the deal. Arrowhead is planning a conference call to review the transaction at 4:30 pm ET.

In Arrowhead's release, Lobb, the chief scientist at Alvos, said: "We were attracted to Arrowhead as an acquirer because of its ability to accelerate development of the platform through its excellent scientific staff and state-of-the-art facilities."

In 2010, Leuchtenberger told me for an article in Xconomy that a special aspect of the technology the company licensed from MD Anderson was the ability to do organ-specific screening of peptides in humans with cancer, enabling researchers to find peptide-receptor pairs that could help them develop treatments that bring targeted fights to tumors.

- here's Arrowhead's release

Related Article:
Roche hands over RNAi assets to Arrowhead Research

Trius shares surge as antibiotic matches Zyvox in pivotal PhIII

Posted under Achaogen, antibiotic, Blog, Clinical Trial Results, Companies, Diagnostics, Funding, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Pharmaceuticals, Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, Startups, tedizolid, Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals, Trius Therapeutics, Universities, Videos by John Carroll

Shares of Trius Therapeutics ($TSRX) surged on the news that its late-stage antibiotic tedizolid closely matched Zyvox (linezolid) in one of a series of pivotal studies, helping nail down support for its case that the experimental antibiotic is just as good as the blockbuster with a once-daily dosing schedule over a shorter period. The antibiotic hit its primary endpoint for acute bacterial skin and skin structure infections as well as all secondary goals. The news helped push up Trius shares a little more than 10% this morning in early trading.

Trius also bolstered its case that its antibiotic is safer than the mainstay product, which had worldwide sales of $1.2 billion in 2010. Investigators reported that about one in four of the tedizolid patients experienced "drug-related treatment emergent adverse events" compared to 31% of linezolid treated patients. Gastrointestinal adverse events were the most commonly reported events and were statistically significantly lower in tedizolid patients than in linezolid patients.

"We are very pleased the trial demonstrated that a 6-day course of once daily oral tedizolid is as efficacious as a 10-day course of twice daily oral linezolid while showing an improved tolerability profile," said Jeffrey Stein, Ph.D., the CEO of Trius. "We look forward to presenting the detailed results of this study, the first Phase 3 study to be conducted under the new regulatory paradigm, both in a peer reviewed journal and at a major conference in 2012."

Trius is one of a handful of biotechs like Rib-X, Tetraphase and Achaogen which are pushing ahead with experimental antibiotics despite a tough regulatory environment and years of neglect by Big Pharma. Last July Bayer Pharma stepped up with a $94 million deal for the antibiotic, paying $25 million upfront for the Asian, African and Latin American rights to tedizolid (formerly torezolid) while the biotech held on to the key U.S. and European rights.

- here's the Trius release

Special Report: Trius Therapeutics - 10 Biotech IPOs of 2010

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