DUBLIN – Pfizer Inc. is swapping its New York home for an Irish domicile by combining with Allergan plc in an all-share deal, which values the latter firm at $160 billion and which will cut Pfizer's tax rate from its reported rate of 25.5 percent in 2014 to 17 percent to 18 percent for the combined company. Read More
DUBLIN – Obseva SA closed a $60 million series B round to progress its pipeline of drugs focused on women's reproductive health and to give it enough firepower to add further projects to its portfolio. Read More
LONDON – Senior health experts from around the world have called for the establishment of a global fund to finance the discovery and development of drugs and vaccines for treating Ebola and other pathogens with the potential to cause major disease outbreaks. Read More
Phase II results with oral ridinilazole against the potentially lethal Clostridium difficile bug "exceeded our wildest expectations" said Glyn Edwards, CEO of Oxford, U.K.-based Summit Therapeutics plc, which is working on the phase III program's design as partnership talks continue. Read More
HONG KONG – Combining suppression of stemness with lineage-specific induction using a newly developed sequential treatment protocol leads to the successful conversion of pluripotent stem cells (PSCs) into functioning neurons for potential use in regenerative medicine, a study by Korean researchers has found. Read More
HONG KONG – 3Sbio Inc., a biopharmaceutical company that has returned to a stock market in China after delisting abroad, has now taken a further step in its newfound home market by acquiring shares of a leading biosimilar monoclonal antibody (MAb) maker as part of an effort to build the largest biological drug platform in China. Read More
Novartis AG, of Basel, Switzerland, said its U.S. subsidiary, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. (NPC), finalized a settlement to resolve a civil suit filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York related to interactions with specialty pharmacies for Exjade (deferasirox) and Myfortic (mycophenolic acid). Read More
Aduro Biotech Inc., of Berkeley, Calif., said the EMA granted orphan drug designation to CRS-207 for the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). Read More
Kitov Pharmaceuticals Holdings Ltd., of Tel Aviv, Israel, priced its U.S. offering of about 3.2 million American depository shares (ADS) and warrants to purchase up to about 3.2 million additional ADSs at a combined price of $4.13 for expected gross proceeds of about $13 million. Read More
Biolinerx Ltd., of Tel Aviv, Israel, said it started a phase I/II trial for BL-8040 in combination with standard-of-care immunosuppressive therapy as a treatment for two bone marrow failure conditions: hypoplastic myelodysplastic syndrome (hMDS) and aplastic anemia (AA). Read More