Pacira and Histogen Disclose Layoffs, Optimer Advances Diarrhea Drug, Torrey Path Comes to Town, & More SD BizTech

pathogens that cause traveler’s diarrhea in people visiting India, Guatemala and Mexico. The trial shows the drug is effective in treating a wide array of intestinal pathogens, and helps reduce the business risk as Optimer continues forward with its drug development plans.

—Ambrx and German pharmaceutical giant Merck KGaA announced a new partnership to co-develop a drug for treating multiple sclerosis. Although the life sciences companies did not disclose financial terms of the alliance, Luke gained some insight from Ambryx CEP Steve Kaldor.

—Onetime information technology consultant Peter Dresslar of Ann Arbor, MI, told me he’s moving the headquarters of his startup company, Torrey Path, to San Diego. After the story appeared, Dresslar told me he prefers using the word “biodata” instead of “bio-informatics” in describing the complex scientific data that Torrey Path provides to life sciences companies. Biodata, though, generally refers to biographical data and not biological data.

—San Diego-based QUASAR has developed sensor technologies that are sensitive enough to detect the electric fields generated by lighting in tunnels deep underground. Working mostly under small business innovative research grants from DARPA and other government agencies, the QUASAR group of companies has made significant advances in low-frequency, room-temperature electromagnetic sensing systems.

—After trolling the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, shallow and deep, in search of natural microbes that might be useful in treating autoimmune disease and cancer, Nereus Pharmaceuticals is now working on two drug candidates for treating cancer. Luke says the startup has raised $125 million in venture capital from big name investors like Roche Venture Fund, Alta Partners, and San Diego’s Forward Ventures, among others.

—Wall Street hammered shares of specialty drugmaker Somaxon Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:[[ticker:SOMX]]) Friday, after the company disclosed the FDA rejected its application to market a new drug for insomnia. The price of Somaxon stock fell 80 percent, from $2.14 a share at Thursday’s close to 44 cents a share Friday.

—Cypress Bioscience (NASDAQ: [[ticker:CYPB]]), which recently won FDA approval of adrug for fibromyalgia, acquired diagnostic technology for autoimmune diseases like lupus from Cellatope, a Pittsburgh, PA, startup, in a deal valued at $5 million.

—The San Diego Venture Group provided an upbeat ending to the week by naming three local companies for their breakout performance in 2008, despite the mounting economic challenges as the year progressed. The breakout companies were chosen for their success in technology, life sciences, and cleantech. The respective winners were The Active Network, Novalar Pharmaceuticals, and Sapphire Energy.

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Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.