Swine Flu Could Benefit Some Biomedical Companies, Local Biotechs Are Looking Healthier, Arena Happy With Obesity Drug Results, & More San Diego Life Sciences News

As the flu season nears, it’s still unclear how severe the H1N1 strain of swine flu will be. But several San Diego companies are nevertheless riding a wave of investor enthusiasm for the public companies that could benefit. Get that and other biotech news here.

—The financial health of San Diego’s public life sciences companies appears to be improving, according to Luke’s recent analysis of available data about the companies’ cash balances, burn rates, and financial projections. Luke concluded that 15 of the 27 public biotechs in the San Diego area are in stronger financial shape now than they were at the end of 2008.

—After presenting highlights of a clinical trial that enrolled more than 4,000 patients, San Diego’s Arena Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ARNA]]) says its obesity drug candidate meets at least one FDA benchmark for effectiveness and is “safe and well-tolerated.” Arena CEO Jack Lief said the company has “accomplished what we set out to accomplish.”

—San Diego-based Ambrx, which has drug development partnerships with Merck, Eli Lilly, and Merck KGaA of Germany, has signed up another major partner—Wyeth. Ambryx will work with Wyeth to create new engineered antibody drugs against multiple diseases, and since New Jersey-based Wyeth (NYSE: [[ticker:WYE]]) is in the process of being acquired by Pfizer, it means Ambryx will continue to work on the antibody partnership with Pfizer—as long as the buyout goes through.

—San Diego’s Quidel (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QDEL]]) is among five San Diego biomedical companies that have benefitted from investor interest in swine flu-related products or services in recent months. But as Denise found, not all five companies will generate much additional business if the H1N1 flu season proves to be as serious and some health officials have predicted. The official start of the flu season is Oct. 4.

—Soon after Denise’s profile of San Diego “virtual” biotech Tioga Pharmaceuticals, Luke visited virtual company VentiRx, which has employees in Seattle and San Diego. VentiRx co-founder Rob Hershberg says VentiRx has enrolled 18 patients in its first clinical trial of a drug for cancer, and so far it appears safe.

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.