San Diego Life Sciences Roundup: Amylin Buyout, PDUFA, & More

Antibiotic Incentives Now,” also known as the GAIN Act. It provides incentives for the life sciences industry to develop a new generation of antibiotics for treating life-threatening infections caused by drug-resistant pathogens.

—San Diego-based Trovagene (NASDAQ: [[ticker:TROV]]) said it has agreed to work with scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to develop a urine test for detecting KRAS mutations in the genomes of pancreatic cancer patients. Trovagene, which develops trans-renal molecular diagnostics, said a non-invasive urine test would greatly simplify patient monitoring.

—San Diego’s BioSurplus, which provides online listings of used laboratory equipment and provides equipment management services, has expanded its equity round from the $1.5 million disclosed in May to $2.4 million, according to VentureWire. BioSurplus said in May that KI Investment Holdings provided most of the round.

—San Diego-based MediciNova (NASDAQ: [[ticker:MNOV]]) said it has scheduled an end-of-Phase 2 meeting with the FDA on Oct. 22 to discuss the company’s plans for a late-stage trial of its experimental compound for urgent care treatment of acute asthma. In May, MediciNova reported some mixed results of its mid-stage clinical trials of the drug, which has been designated MN-221. MediciNoval laid out its plans for me earlier this year.

—Qualcomm awarded a total of $30,000 in prize money to Rich Stoner, a research engineer at UC San Diego, for demonstrating an app that could be used to detect signs of autism in 12-month-old infants during a one-day “hackathon and codefest” the company sponsored. The all-day mobile app development competition offered a total of $50,000 in cash prizes to developers in five categories. Stoner got the prize for “best prototype app using facial processing” as well as the $25,000 grand prize for best overall app.

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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.