By Ryan McBride Valeant Pharmaceuticals’ ($VRX) planned $345 million acquisition of Johnson & Johnson’s ($JNJ) Ortho Dermatologics could be another positive sign for biotech companies, as Big Pharma outfits shed their auxiliary businesses to enhance focus on novel drugs. Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a J&J unit, and French drug giant Sanofi ($SNY) have both opted to sell …
By Ryan McBride Big names in life sciences are backing DVS Sciences in a $14.6 million Series A round. With biomarker analysis technology for personalized medicine, the start-up has garnered investments from the investment vehicles of drug giants Pfizer ($PFE) and Roche as well as the venture firms 5AM Ventures and Mohr Davidow Ventures. 5AM …
By John Carroll Third Rock Ventures is taking $26 million out of its latest fund to bankroll another upstart biotech. In joint announcements rolled out bright and early today the venture group took the wraps off of Lotus Tissue Repair and announced an in-licensing deal for protein replacement technology that will initially target an ultra-rare …
By John Carroll The veteran crew of cancer drug developers at MGI Pharma who went on to found Tesaro a little more than a year ago have rounded up a whopping $101 million B round led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The cash gives the Boston-based biotech more cash to follow up on its late-stage …
By John Carroll It’s not been an easy time for venture groups trying to make money in the biotech arena, says Terry McGuire, the co-founder of Polaris Venture Partners. The bleak prospects for IPOs have cast a pall over the VC companies, McGuire tells CNBC. And then there’s the growing amount of time it takes to …
By John Carroll Roche says that it will work with the University of Geneva, Geneva University Hospitals and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics in the translational research arena–just the latest example of a big pharma company that has been searching the globe for some expert help developing new drugs and diagnostics. And certainly not the …
By John Carroll Richard Barker has just stepped down from the top spot in the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry with some decided opinions about the changing face of the R&D side of the business. He underscores the major shift away from research silos toward an “innovation ecosystem,” in which pharma companies stop relying …
By Tracy Staton Novartis is scouting around for bolt-on deals. CEO Joe Jimenez (photo) says the Swiss company would spend up to $3 billion on consumer health and veterinary medicine acquisitions to beef up its businesses in those areas, Bloomberg reports. Novartis would also snap up assets in generics, biotech or diagnostics. “We do expect to …
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