100,000 people die in the U.S. each year from hospital-acquired infections, and nearly one in 20 hospital patients acquires an infection during their stay.
—San Diego’s Santarus (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SNTS]]), which faces competition from generic drug-makers as its acid reflux drug comes off patent, acquired two more experimental drugs for its development pipeline. Santarus got recombinant human C1 inhibitor (Rhucin) for hereditary angioedema from the Pharming Group and a humanized anti-VLA1 antibody drug for inflammatory and autoimmune diseases through its buyout of Covella Pharmaceuticals.
—Sequel Pharmaceuticals, the San Diego biotech that CEO Randall Woods founded as a sequel to NovaCardia (and with the same core group), has raised almost $1.4 million in a combination of debt, rights, and securities as part of a round intended to bring in more than $1.9 million. Sequel has been developing a drug candidate for treating an abnormal heart rhythm known as atrial fibrillation.
—Shareholders of NexMed, the San Diego contract research organization (CRO), voted to change the name of the company to Apricus Biosciences (NASDAQ: [[APRI]]). The company’s previous ticker symbol was NEXM.
—Fierce Biotech, an e-mail newsletter published by the Washington, DC-based Fierce Markets B2B digital media group, named two San Diego life sciences companies—Amira Pharmaceuticals and VentiRx Pharmaceuticals—to its eighth annual list of “Fierce 15” most promising private biotech companies.
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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