Orexigen Halts U.S. Work on Weight Loss Drug, Illumina Cuts Price for Sequencing Patient Genomes, Ambit Pulls IPO, & More San Diego Life Sciences News

more than $105 million in venture capital since it was founded in 2000.

—Solana Beach, CA-based Assay Depot, which provides online e-commerce platforms that make it easier for life sciences researchers to hire clinical research organizations, has raised $1.7 million from private investors. Assay Depot said it plans to use the funding to expand its cloud-based pharmaceutical research services.

—Luke listed some of the key announcements coming out of the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting, which ended yesterday in Chicago. He noted that VentiRx Pharmaceuticals, with operations in both San Diego and Seattle, said it plans to move ahead with four clinical trials of an immune-booster for treating solid tumors in combination with chemotherapies, antibodies, and radiation treatments. San Diego’s Ligand Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:LGND]]) released some preliminary data from a new chemical formulation of melphalan, a chemotherapy that’s supposed to “enable clinicians to safely achieve a higher dose intensity of pre-transplant chemotherapy.”

—New semiconductor sequencing technology from Carlsbad, CA-based Life Technologies (NASDAQ: [[ticker:LIFE]]) identified the cause of a deadly foodborne outbreak sweeping Europe as an aggressive hybrid with traits of two pathogenic E. coli strains. Today, Spiegel reports that the death toll stands at 26 in Germany, with 2,600 others sickened across Europe. Life Technologies also developed a custom assay that accurately and rapidly detects the E. coli bacterium in food samples.

—In his BioBeat column this week, Luke listed some of the drug developers today that all have the potential to become big, independent, and profitable biotechs. His list includes Cambridge, MA-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:VRTX]]). Seattle’s Dendreon (NASDAQ: [[ticker:DNDN]]), Cheshire, CT-based Alexion Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ALXN]]), South San Francisco-based Onyx Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ONXX]])), and Rockville, MD-based Human Genome Sciences (NASDAQ: [[ticker:HGSI]]).

—San Diego-based Halozyme Therapeutics (NASDAQ: [[ticker:HALO]]) announced a drug development partnership with Foster City, CA-based Intrexon that could be worth as much as $63 million. The deal was announced just weeks after Halozyme inked a drug development partnership with ViroPharma (NASDAQ: [[ticker:VPHM]]) of Exton, PA, that could be worth as much as $83 million.

—Tioga Pharmaceuticals, a San Diego virtual biotech led by Forward Ventures’ Stuart Collinson, said the FDA granted “fast track” status to asimadoline, the compound Tioga is developing for patients with diarrhea-predominant irritable bowel syndrome.

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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.