Sequenom Discloses SEC Probe, How Evoke Pharma Got its Drug, Illumina Sales Fall Short, & More San Diego Life Sciences News

We had a mixed bag of bad and good news from the San Diego life sciences industry this week heading into the holiday weekend.

—At least 11 shareholder lawsuits have been filed against San Diego’s Sequenom (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SQNM]]) since the medical diagnostics company disclosed on April 29 that four employees were suspended for “mishandling” research data supporting a noninvasive prenatal test for Down syndrome. (A Sequenom spokesman told me last night the four employess are still suspended). The SEC also has launched an investigation into the mishandled research data that goes as far back as June 2008, according to regulatory filing from Sequenom earlier this week.

—Some documents filed by Hayward, CA-based Questcor (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QCOR]]) show that it is the source of an experimental drug now under development by stealthy San Diego biotech Evoke Pharma for treating gastroparesis, a serious digestive ailment. Questcor stopped its development of metoclopramide, which has significant side-effects, in mid-2001, when British drugmaker Shire Pharmaceuticals withdrew from their drug development partnership.

—After raising more than $47,000, a cancer diagnostics startup founded by UC San Diego grad student Raj Krishnan, was one of 16 finalists this week in a global business plan competition sponsored by Cisco Systems and the Draper Fisher Jurvetson venture capital firm. Alas, the top prize—$250,000 in investment capital—was awarded to a team from the University of Virginia who founded Husk Power Systems, a startup developing miniature power plants for rural India.

—San Diego’s Vical (NASDAQ: [[ticker:VICL]]) says the DNA vaccine it quickly developed for the H1N1 Swine Flu produced “robust immune responses” in animal tests. While the U.S. Navy has supported Vical’s work so far, the company has not been successful in landing additional government funding needed to move to the next stage of vaccine development.

—San Diego respiratory drug developer Amira Pharmaceuticals reported encouraging results from animal tests of its experimental drug for reducing fibrotic lung scarring in mice with pulmonary fibrosis. The biotech hopes to begin human tests of its oral medication during the first half of next year. Andrew Tager, a pulmonologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and adviser to Amira, told Denise that the drug also shows promise against other fibrotic conditions, such as cirrhosis of the liver and some forms of kidney disease.

—Illumina (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ILMN]]), the San Diego-based maker of genetic analysis tools, said its second quarter sales fell short of the company’s forecasts. It generated about $161 million in sales during the quarter, compared with the expected range of $168 million to $173 million.

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.