Defense IT firm Leidos today announced it has successfully closed on the acquisition of Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin’s Information Systems & Global Solutions business, formalizing a deal announced in January.
With Lockheed Martin’s $5 billion IT business, Leidos becomes the government’s largest IT provider—nearly doubling its annual revenue to $10 billion—and further cements its place as a force in the growing federal health IT market.
Companion diagnostics is gaining currency as novel drugs are being paired up with tests that determine which patients will have a higher chance of responding to that drug.
But 15 years after the human genome project has been completed, the progress of precision medicine appears to be woefully slow, at least according to Nicholas Dracopoli, vice president and head of Oncology Biomarkers at Janssen Research & Development, part of Johnson & Johnson. Others believe precision medicine and companion diagnostics have a chicken and egg problem.
Tioma Therapeutics, Inc., a venture-stage biopharmaceutical company developing anti-CD47 antibodies for the treatment of solid and hematologic cancers, today announced it has raised $86 million in Series A venture financing. Proceeds from this financing will be used to further develop Tioma’s antibody portfolio, including its lead drug candidate — an anti-CD47 immune checkpoint inhibitor — through advanced proof-of-concept in human clinical trials.
Attention, startups creating the next smartwatch or heart-rate sensing fabric: The Homeland Security Department wants your products.
DHS on Monday opened applications for the second round of its federally focused tech “accelerator,” in search of wearable devices that can be customized for first responders.
QIAGEN N.V. (NASDAQ: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) today announced plans to return approximately $250 million to shareholders through a synthetic share repurchase proposal that combines a direct capital repayment with a reverse stock split.
These actions, which will lead to an adjustment in QIAGEN’s share capital, have been used previously by other large, multinational Dutch companies as an efficient way to provide returns to shareholders. The proposal, if adopted, is expected to be similar to QIAGEN repurchasing approximately $250 million of its own shares, but will enable the return of capital to all shareholders in a much faster and more efficient way than through a traditional open-market repurchase program.
In the past few years the wearables sector has been a hive of activity, but it feels like this year things have accelerated, particularly in the realm of health and wellness. A report by Forrester Research projected that 29 percent of Americans will use wearable devices, compared with 18 percent in 2015. It predicts that wearables sales will rise from $4.2 billion in 2015 to $9.8 billion in 2021.
Bristol-Myers Squibb’s acquisition of Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals and its prodrug used to treat heart failure earned top honors in the Mergers and Acquisitions category from Thomson Reuters’ Allicense event on June 8.
Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures and a visiting researcher from the National Institutes of Health helped put the Johns Hopkins University scientists who compose the startup in touch, which led to the creation of Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals.
As members of a life sciences advisory and investment banking group, my partners and I have often noted that life sciences companies fall victim to the same mistakes and misconceptions, repeated again and again. These failures mostly hinge upon company management misunderstanding the fundamentals of market dynamics and failing to appreciate the importance of the exit—the sole event where company investors receive a return on their investment, either through an initial public offering (IPO) or a company sale. Unfortunately, the biotech industry’s track record on exits is disappointing. According to the National Venture Capital Association (Washington, DC), between 2005 and 2014, only one in five US biotech and medical device companies achieved liquidity after six years. And from my perspective over the past 20 years, that low success rate does not appear to be improving.
Women of the Virginia bioscience community from across the state will lead this first-ever full day event offering examples of working together to build a stronger bioscience industry, stronger companies and institutions, stronger teams and networks, and stronger individuals.
When: Thursday, September 29, 2016 10:00AM-5:00PM
Where: Inova Center for Personalized Health 3225 Gallows Rd Fairfax, Virginia 22037 United States
Disruptors are a special type of innovator who go outside the box and attempt to change preconceived notions and practices. If you take a look at the meaning of the word, “to disrupt” means to “rupture” or break apart, and essentially disruptors do this – discarding the old ways to bring in new ones. We might even take it a step further and look at as the commonly used root of “dis” which means to “do the opposite of” – and see the idea that disruptors are “fixers” essentially putting the pieces of something broken back together. Here’s a look at three disruptors in Boston Biotech who are revolutionizing traditional pharma to radically change the ways cures are being brought about for disease.
