San Diego Life Sciences Roundup: Receptos, Arena, NuVasive, & More

the influenza virus. The deal gives Janssen certain license rights to the results of their joint research. Scott Forrest, TSRI’s vice president for business development, said the deal reflects a corporate partnering strategy that seeks to match specific areas of Big Pharma interest with expertise at TSRI labs in San Diego and Florida.

—Ambrx, a San Diego drug developer that specializes in “smart bomb” antibody drugs, said it entered into a collaboration agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: [[ticker:BMY]]) to develop new antibody drug conjugates based on Ambrx’s protein medicinal chemistry technology. Bristol-Myers Squibb agreed to pay Ambrx $15 million upfront, provide R&D funding, and make potential milestone payments of up to $97 million. Additional terms were not disclosed.

—San Diego-based NuVasive (NASDAQ: [[ticker:NUVA]]), which has developed minimally disruptive surgical products and procedures for the spine, said it paid $4.5 million to buy ANC, a spine implant manufacturer based in Dayton, OH. Financial terms were not disclosed. NuVasive Chairman and CEO Alex Lukianov said bringing portions of the company’s manufacturing in-house is a key element of NuVasive’s commitment to improve profitability and grow annual revenue to $1 billion and beyond.

—Qualcomm Life, the wireless health subsidiary of San Diego’s Qualcomm (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QCOM]]), said it acquired San Diego-based HealthyCircles, a software-as-a-service startup that enables care providers to share patient information. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The purchase enables Qualcomm Life to combine its 2net wireless technology with a software platform that enables health care professionals, patients, families, and caregivers to share information and manage patient care. HealthyCircles’ founder, James Mault, is a former Microsoft (NASDAQ: [[ticker:MSFT]]) HealthVault executive, and joins Qualcomm Life as chief medical officer. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

—GenomeDx Biosciences, a medical diagnostics company based in Vancouver, BC, and San Diego, said studies presented at the 2013 American Urological Association conference this week meeting add fresh support for its test of metastasis risk in men with prostate cancer. GenomeDx said an independent study of its “Decipher” technology on 1,010 Mayo Clinic patients show its genomic test is a better predictor of metastasis in post-surgical prostate cancer patients than existing assessment tools.

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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.