San Diego Life Sciences Roundup: Optimer, CareFusion, Senomyx & More

Image licensed by Depositphotos.com/Christian Delbert.

Here’s our latest roundup of news from San Diego’s life sciences community.

—It took awhile, but San Diego’s Pathway Genomics appears to have recovered from the ill effects of a 2010 letter from the FDA that more or less brought its business to a halt. Under a revised strategy, the company has been forming partnerships to provide physicians and their patients with genetic reports that screen for an individual’s response to prescribed drugs, propensity for complex disease, and other genetic conditions. This week, Pathway Genomics said its latest partnership is with the exclusive Scripps Center for Executive Health in La Jolla. That market demographic is quite a contrast from Pathway Genomics’ plan in 2010 to sell a personal genome test kit through Walgreens stores.

—San Diego’s Optimer Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: [[ticker:OPTR]]) said it is selling its remaining stake in Optimer Biotechnology, its Taiwanese affiliate, for $60 million. In April, Optimer Pharmaceuticals ousted Michael Chang, its chairman and a co-founder, and fired the CFO, and another executive, citing compliance and conflict-of-interest issues related to Optimer Biotechnology shares awarded to Chang. Optimer said proceeds from its 43 percent stake would be used to fund marketing of fidaxomicin (Dificid), its antibacterial drug for Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhea.

—CareFusion (NYSE: [[ticker:CFN]]), the San Diego-based medical technology company, said it has agreed to buy Intermed Equipamento Medico Hospitalar, a privately held respiratory equipment maker based in

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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.