San Diego Life Sciences Roundup: Ambit, Zogenix, Aethlon, and More

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Assessing the extent of long-term brain damage from concussions in football and other impact sports can be difficult (to say the least) if the only way to determine whether an individual is suffering from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy is by autopsy. So it’s interesting when a little-known life sciences company like San Diego’s Aethlon Medical starts working with Boston University to develop a blood test for the kind of brain damage caused by blunt force trauma. We have that and the rest of San Diego’s life sciences news.

—Daiichi Sankyo agreed to acquire San Diego’s Ambit Biosciences (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AMBI]]) for $315 million, adding the leukemia drug quizartinib, Ambit’s leading drug candidate, to the Japanese drugmaker’s lineup of cancer treatments. Daiichi Sankyo agreed to pay additional milestone payments that could bring total buyout costs to $410 million.

—Zogenix (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ZGNX]]), the San Diego biotech that has come under criticism from addiction experts for its painkiller Zohydro, said it is seeking FDA approval for a new version that would be more difficult for drug abusers to snort or inject. Zogenix developed Zohydro as an extended-release formulation of pure hydrocodone in response to FDA warnings about drugs that combine hydrocodone with acetaminophen.

—San Diego’s Acutus Medical said it completed a $26.2 million financing round to advance development of its technology for imaging the heart and treating patients with an irregular heartbeat like atrial fibrillation. The company said it also plans to use the funding to expand its product line to include diagnostic catheters and new therapeutic products.

—San Diego-based NeuroGenetic Pharmaceuticals said the FDA has approved its application to begin clinical trials on NGP 555, a compound intended to treat and prevent Alzheimer’s disease. NeuroGenetic was founded in 2009. The company said NGP 555 is its first compound to enter clinical trials.

— San Diego-based Aethlon Medical said it’s working with its subsidiary and the Boston University CTE Center to develop a diagnostic blood test that could identify the type of brain damage being found among deceased NFL football players. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that currently can only be diagnosed in an autopsy. If successful, Aethlon’s test could be used to detect CTE in living individuals.

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.