John Mendlein Tries His Hand as a ‘Parallel Entrepreneur,’ Santaris Continues RNA Therapeutics Work for Pfizer, & More San Diego Life Sciences News

by the Food and Drug Administration won’t be available for another month. But it looks like the FDA approved 21 drugs in 2010, according to monthly drug-approval reports on the FDA’s website reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The number is down from 25 drugs the FDA approved in 2009 and 24 in 2008, but higher than the recent low of 18 in 2007. As the Journal noted, however, 2010 may be more memorable for the drugs that weren’t approved—especially in San Diego. The FDA rejected Amylin Pharmaceuticals‘ new drug application for exenatide once-weekly (Bydureon), a long-acting version of the diabetes drug Byetta. The FDA also declined to approve two proposed weight-loss drugs from San Diego’s Arena Pharmaceuticals and Vivus of Mountain View, CA.

—We’ve had a number of guest editorials in the Xconomy Forum from San Diego’s Xconomists and other technology and life sciences leaders, who are weighing in with their perspective on some of the top surprises in 2010, as well as some developments to watch for in 2011. Intellikine CEO Troy Wilson discusses how combinations of experimental-stage drugs could become more commonplace as cancer researchers hunt for better treatments. Tomorrow, Regulus Therapeutics CEO Kleanthis Xanthopoulos (do you think he might be Greek?) will offer some life sciences predictions straight from the Oracle at Delphi.

—We’re still watching for developments at Genoptix (NASDAQ: [[ticker:GXDX]]), the Carlsbad, CA-based company that provides a centralized testing service for cancers of the blood, which put itself up for sale before the holidays. Bloomberg reported that Genoptix hired Barclays Capital to run an auction.

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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.