SD Life Sciences Roundup: Gen-Probe, Zogenix, & the Innovation Economy

Here’s our wrap-up of life sciences news over the past week, along with some life sciences data from the latest Connect Innovation Report.

—Bedford, MA-based Hologic (NASDAQ: [[ticker:HOLX]]) agreed to pay $3.7 billion, or $82.75 a share, for Gen-Probe (NASDAQ: [[GPRO]]), San Diego’s venerable, 29-year-old clinical diagnostics company. At a 20 percent premium, the Hologic-Gen-Probe deal represents good news for investors. But Hologic said it also expects to squeeze $75 million in cost savings by consolidating the two companies’ operations, and it’s unclear how that will play out for Gen-Probe’s 1,400 employees.

—San Diego’s Zogenix (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ZGNX]]) said it is seeking approval from federal drug regulators for its extended-release formulation of hydrocodone bitartrate (Zohydro) for managing chronic pain. In submitting its new drug application for the opioid pain-killer, Zogenix is keeping to the schedule it outlined last year. If approved, Zohydro says its drug could be the first 12-hour hydrocodone pain-killer that poses no risk of acetaminophen-related liver injury

—San Diego’s AnaptysBio said it has formed a partnership with Foster City, CA-based Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ: [[ticker:GILD) to discover and optimize therapeutic antibodies, using its proprietary technology. Gilead agreed to pay AnaptysBio an undisclosed upfront fee as well as milestone and royalty payments for products that advance under the partnership. The companies did not identify what the focus of their drug developments would be. AnaptysBio, which was founded in 2005, previously signed collaboration deals with Celgene, Roche, Novartis, and Merck.

—In this week’s BioBeat column, Luke explained why his pessimism about life sciences IPOs is relaxing a bit to allow

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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.