total of $27 million in a new Series C round disclosed in January. PatientSafe developed a handheld smart device to help nurses manage their clinical care workflow, guide patient care, coordinate tasks and communicate with other nurses and doctors, and to collect and record patient vital signs and other data.
—San Diego’s Lumena Pharmaceuticals said it has initiated a global clinical program to evaluate its drug candidate LUM001 in children with Alagille syndrome, a genetic disorder that can affect the liver, heart, and other parts of the body. Lumena said the first patient was enrolled in a mid-stage trial being done in the UK. In a separate statement, Lumena says the FDA designated LUM001 as an orphan drug for treatment of four rare cholestatic liver diseases, including Alagille, progressive familial intraheptic cholestasis, primary biliary cirrhosis, and primary scherosing cholangitis.
—San Diego’s Halozyme Therapeutics (NASDAQ: [[ticker:HALO]]) said the commercial introduction of trastuzumab (Herceptin) using Halozyme’s recombinant human hyaluronidase has triggered a $10 million milestone payment from Roche. Halozyme said the drug was launched on Aug. 28 when the European Commission approved it for the treatment of patients with HER2-positive breast cancer.
—Janssen Healthcare Innovation introduced a free mobile app and Web-based platform designed to help anyone with almost any type of cell phone take their medications as prescribed. The Care4Today Mobile Health Manager was developed in San Diego and is intended for people who forget to take their meds—which is about half of us.
—Curtana Pharmaceuticals, a San Diego biotech founded earlier this year, said it has secured a licensing agreement from UC San Diego for a new class of small-molecule drugs that target
