The University System of Maryland recently invested $250,000 in a University of Maryland alumna’s biotech company.
RegenxBio Inc. just locked in another deal — this one with a company working to treat eye diseases.
The Rockville biotech has reached a licensing agreement with Alpharetta, Georgia-based Clearside Biomedical Inc. (NASDAQ: CLSD) for rights to its platform to treat several eye diseases including wet age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. RegenxBio (NASDAQ: RGNX) plans to evaluate one of its own gene therapy programs, called RGX-314, using Clearside’s in-office injection as an alternative to surgery.
With nothing more than a passing glance, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of Roche Holdings’ (OTC:RHHBY) cancer drug entrectinib last month was a run-of-the-mill announcement. In fact, it was almost boilerplate in its tone and feel.
A small clinical study in California has suggested for the first time that it might be possible to reverse the body’s epigenetic clock, which measures a person’s biological age.
For one year, nine healthy volunteers took a cocktail of three common drugs — growth hormone and two diabetes medications — and on average shed 2.5 years of their biological ages, measured by analysing marks on a person’s genomes. The participants’ immune systems also showed signs of rejuvenation.
Baltimore-based Capsulomics won the top award in Utah last month at a pitch competition that was part of a boot camp for early-stage companies founded by military members, veterans and military spouses.
In the world of drug discovery and development, there is increasing pressure to get novel products to market faster, cheaper and ahead of the competition. This is exactly what Insilico Medicine is helping leading pharmaceutical companies to achieve through their artificial intelligence technology for drug discovery.
The BioHealth Capital Region (BHCR) continues to thrive and currently occupies the fourth spot in the most recent Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology (GEN) top ten U.S. biohealth cluster rankings. More importantly, the collaborative efforts across industry, academia, government and nonprofits within the BHCR have generated powerful momentum that is now producing tangible results: The region has moved up two spots in GEN’s rankings in the last five years.
United Therapeutics Corporation (UTHR) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for review the New Drug Application (NDA) for Trevyent® (treprostinil) for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). The FDA assigned the NDA a Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) target action date of April 27, 2020. Trevyent is a post-phase III development-stage drug-device combination product that combines two-day, single use, disposable PatchPump® technology with treprostinil, for the subcutaneous treatment of PAH.
Are you finding it harder to recruit, hire and retain the biotech workforce you need?
Well, you’re not alone. With the demand for talent at an all-time high, competition has never been greater.
With product candidates acquired from AstraZeneca (AZN) and MedImmune, Viela Bio (VIE) is clinical-stage biotechnology to be followed carefully. Besides, at Phase 3 of development, the company could deliver positive results in 2020, which may make the share price run. After the IPO, we expect Viela to have an enterprise value between $180 and $310 million. With that, in our opinion, savvy individuals will try to acquire shares at an enterprise value of $200 million.