San Diego Life Sciences Roundup: Life’s M&A Deal, Santarus, & More

Biotech laboratory pipettes

into a joint venture to develop and commercialize interferon beta-1b, a genetically engineered protein product for treating multiple sclerosis, and five other biosimilar products. In a statement, the partners said they plan to advance their initial pipeline of drugs from preclinical through late stage clinical trials and commercialization.

—Santaris Pharma, the Danish biopharmaceutical with R&D operations in San Diego, said it had established a worldwide strategic alliance with Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: [[ticker:BMY]]) to discover and develop new medicines. Santaris said it would get an upfront payment of $10 million, and up to $90 million per product in potential milestone payments, as well as potential royalty payments for commercialized products.

—As if life wasn’t confusing enough already, the San Diego-based biopharmaceutical Santarus (NASDAQ: [[ticker:SNTS]]) said it submitted a new drug application to the FDA for a biologic called recombinant human C1 esterase inhibitor (Ruconest). Santarus (which is not related to Santaris Pharma) has been working with the Pharming Group (a Dutch pharma based in Leiden) to develop the drug, which treats a rare genetic disorder called acute angioedema, a protein deficiency that results in unpredictable and debilitating episodes of intense swelling. The drug has already been approved in Europe.

—The J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) said SAIC founder J. Robert Beyster and Betty J. Beyster will donate approximately $2.5 million to support the completion of the new J. Craig Venter Institute sustainable laboratory under construction at UC San Diego. In recognition of their gift, the third-floor ocean view conference room and terrace will be named the “Bob and Betty Beyster Conference Room” and the “Bob and Betty Beyster Terrace”.

—San Diego’s Aethlon Medical said it has entered into a subcontract with Battelle under a $22.8 million prime contract awarded by the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to integrate component technologies developed under DARPA’s Dialysis-Like Therapeutics program. Aethlon was previously awarded a $6.8 million contract to develop two technology components under the program, which is intended to develop technology that can be used to filter septic precursors, bacterial toxins, and other harmful particles from the bloodstream. Aethlon said it also asked the FDA to allow the company to use its blood filtration device in a clinical feasibility study of Hepatitis-C (HCV) infected patients.

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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.