Optimer Seeks Fast Review of Drug for Intestinal Infection, Histogen Raises $10M, TSRI Shares its “Click” Chemistry in Deal with Massachusetts Biotech, & More San Diego Life Sciences News

The Thanksgiving holiday helped to keep activity in San Diego’s life science companies at minimum levels over the past week. Still, what we picked up was interesting reading. Judge for yourself.

—San Diego’s Optimer Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:OPTR]]) filed a new drug application with the FDA for fidaxomicin, the drug it developed to treat patients with Clostridium difficile infection, the most common cause of diarrhea in hospitals. Optimer also asked for a priority review that takes six months instead of the usual 10. If granted, the FDA could issue a decision as early as the second quarter of 2011.

—San Diego’s Histogen said it has raised $10 million in Series A funding, which has enabled the life sciences startup to mount some mid-stage clinical trials of its regenerative medical treatements. The funding represents a comeback of sorts for Histogen, which was forced to lay off all 36 employees last year after rival SkinMedica of Carlsbad, CA, filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the startup.

—A life sciences industry survey by San Diego’s Biocom, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, and MassBio found that U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials are becoming more likely to change their position during the latter stage of the product review process. Sixty-three percent of the 50 companies participating in the study said the FDA had changed its position during at least one review, compared to 40 percent who made similar comments in a previous survey conducted in 2006.

—Aileron Therapeutics of Cambridge, MA, got exclusive rights to “click” chemistry technology that Nobel laureate K. Barry Sharpless developed at The Scripps Research Institute in San Diego. Click chemistry generates substances quickly and reliably by joining small reactive molecular building blocks together selectively to form extremely tight bonds. Financial terms were not disclosed.

—Roche terminated its collaboration and licensing agreement to develop a new treatment for hepatitis C with San Diego’s Ligand Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:LGNDD]]). Ligand and the Swiss pharmaceutical giant signed the deal two years ago.

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.