Bio Roundup: Termeer Tribute, ASCO Peeks, Califf’s New Gigs & More

future payments. River Vision Development was acquired by Horizon Pharma for $145 million a week ago.

—Seattle’s Genoa Pharmaceuticals has raised a $62 million Series A round and hired local biotech veteran Bruce Montgomery to take the CEO seat and lead the firm through Phase 2 studies of its inhaled version of pirfenidone, a treatment for deadly lung scarring. Genoa is aiming for fewer side effects than the pill version, approved in 2014 and now marketed by Roche.

—Vifor Pharma made a $50 million equity investment in Akebia Therapeutics (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AKBA]]) at $14 per share. The deal gives Akebia license to sell its anemia pill vadadustat, upon FDA approval, at Fresenius Medical Care dialysis clinics in the U.S. Vadadustat and rival roxadustat from Fibrogen are both in Phase 3 testing.

EVENT RECAP

—Xconomy held its annual “What’s Hot in Boston Biotech” event last week, and this week we circled back with photos and takeaways from the event, including thoughts on immigration, diversity, cancer research, and patient advocacy.

—Alex Lash and Frank Vinluan contributed to this report.

Photo of Henri Termeer by Robert Scoble via Creative Commons 2.0 license.

Pages: Page 1, Page 2

Author: Ben Fidler

Ben is former Xconomy Deputy Editor, Biotechnology. He is a seasoned business journalist that comes to Xconomy after a nine-year stint at The Deal, where he covered corporate transactions in industries ranging from biotech to auto parts and gaming. Most recently, Ben was The Deal’s senior healthcare writer, focusing on acquisitions, venture financings, IPOs, partnerships and industry trends in the pharmaceutical, biotech, diagnostics and med tech spaces. Ben wrote features on creative biotech financing models, analyses of middle market and large cap buyouts, spin-offs and restructurings, and enterprise pieces on legal issues such as pay-for-delay agreements and the Affordable Care Act. Before switching to the healthcare beat, Ben was The Deal's senior bankruptcy reporter, covering the restructurings of the Texas Rangers, Phoenix Coyotes, GM, Delphi, Trump Entertainment Resorts and Blockbuster, among others. Ben has a bachelor’s degree in English from Binghamton University.