Amylin and Biogen Idec Make Board Changes, Inovio Catches Wave of Investor ‘Swine Flu’ Fervor, Ligand Buys Neurogen, & Other San Diego Life Sciences News

Fallout from two of the proxy battles we followed earlier this year has become more apparent on the boards at San Diego’s Amylin Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AMLN]]) and Cambridge, MA-based Biogen Idec (NASDAQ: [[ticker:BIIB]]), which has operations in San Diego. We’ve got that and more life sciences news.

—Diabetes drug maker Amylin Pharmaceuticals said its board selected newly elected director and former Novartis CEO Paulo Costa as chairman, a move that was supported by dissident investor Eastbourne Capital Management. At Biogen Idec, longtime R&D president Cecil Pickett decided to retire from the company and to relinquish his board seat. He’s the second director to resign from Biogen Idec’s board in two months.

—After merging in June with VGX Pharmaceuticals of Blue Bell, PA, shares of San Diego’s Inovio Biomedical (AMEX: [[ticker:INO]]) have climbed in value. But in talking with Inovio CEO J. Joseph Kim, Luke reported that Inovio’s good fortune has less to do with the synergies of combining with VGX than with Inovio’s announcement about its vaccine for the H1N1 “swine flu.”

—Lately, a number of San Diego’s drug development companies are focused on reviving or repurposing older drugs, including Cadence Pharmaceuticals, Somaxon Pharmaceuticals, and Victory Pharmaceuticals. But Denise found that getting a head start with compounds that already passed regulatory muster doesn’t necessarily reduce the odds of failure.

—San Diego’s Ligand Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:LGND]]) has agreed to acquire Neurogen in a mostly stock deal valued at $11 million, resulting in a 3 percent ownership stake for Neurogen shareholders.

—AltheaDx, a San Diego startup that provides services and technologies to streamline drug development, intends to raise $6 million in fresh venture capital, according to a recent regulatory filing. AltheaDx has raised almost $3.6 million so far.

—San Diego-based Enterprise Partners Venture Capital has renewed its commitment to Complete Genomics of Mountain View, CA. The VC firm is participating in the company’s latest $45 million venture round, along with OVP Venture Partners of Kirkland, WA. Complete Genomics intends to use the proceeds to build its own proprietary genome sequencing machines, and plans to provide its services to researchers who send in their samples.

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.