FDA’s comments are specific to a promotional brochure that no longer in use.
—Avalon Ventures partner and aFraxis CEO Jay Lichter explained how the early stage biotech saved millions by working with Torrey Pines Investment, a San Diego life sciences investment firm that owns a full-service contract research organization near Moscow. AFraxis is developing a drug therapy for treating Fragile X, a genetic defect that causes autism and related disabilities.
—GlaxoSmithKline has pulled out its checkbook a second time for Regulus, the Carlsbad, CA-based spinoff of nearby Isis Pharmaceuticals and Cambridge, MA-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. Regulus says Glaxo could pay as much as $150 million in their second collaboration, which is aimed at developing a microRNA drug for hepatitis C.
—Several life sciences startups in the San Diego area have received funding in recent weeks. Auspex Pharmaceuticals raised $3 million, Aethlon Medical raised $600,000, and Tocagen got $3 million.
—What are the organizations in San Diego that are supporting innovation in biotech and medical devices? What are the corporate venture funds that invest in biomedical startups? Xconomy has the answers ready for you in the X Lists, a new resource where we list the resources available in San Diego according to the stages in a startup’s development: Start, Fund, Network, Work & Grow, and Analyze.
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.
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