Vertex Gets Strong Results From Hepatitis C Trial, Anadys Explores Alternatives, Funding Helps to Revive La Jolla Pharmaceutical, & More San Diego Life Sciences News

We saw mostly funding news for San Diego’s life sciences community over the past week, and it was light fare. Get our latest roundup here, and enjoy your Memorial Day weekend.

—Vertex Pharmaceuticals, which is based in Cambridge, MA, and operates a research facility in San Diego, said its experimental drug for hepatitis C cured 75 percent of the patients in the last stage of clinical testing required for FDA approval. Luke detailed the results from a pivotal study of 1,095 patients.

—Anadys Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker: ANDS]]), the San Diego biotech developing a drug to treat hepatitis C, said it has hired an adviser to explore “strategic alternatives” for the company. Such alternatives range from a potential sale of the company or selling or licensing its experimental hepatitis C drug, according to a regulatory filing. Anadys also said it entered into agreements with certain institutional investors to raise about $12.5 million.

—La Jolla Pharmaceutical, which now trades on the over-the-counter bulletin board, said it plans to raise as much as $16.3 million as it seeks to revive its fortunes. The San Diego Union-Tribune said the San Diego biotech found institutional investors to commit up to $6 million toward efforts to restart its business.

—Cyntellect, a San Diego-based provider of biotech research instruments, raised an additional $9 million in equity, debt, and rights as part of a $16 million round the company raised last year. Cyntellect’s instruments are designed to analyze, purify, and grow cells for life sciences research.

—San Diego’s newest non-profit biotech group, the San Diego Entrepreneurs Exchange, organized a presentation and discussion on the fine art of grantsmanship—apply for and winning federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants. The tips they offered included a Top 10 list of dos and don’ts from Scott Struthers, the founder and chief scientist at San Diego-based Crinetics Pharmaceuticals.

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.