Venture funding for San Diego’s life sciences companies continued to flow at a healthy rate during the third quarter that ended in September, according to data released earlier today. We’ve got that and more.
—Former Optimer Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: [[ticker:OPTR]]) chairman Michael Chang, who was ousted by the company’s board earlier this year, will lead Taiwan’s Optimer Biotechnology (OBI), according to a report in the English language China Times. Optimer Pharmaceuticals recently disclosed plans to sell its 43 percent stake in OBI. The China Times identifies the buyer as Huei Hong Investment, led by Reuntex Financial Group CEO Samuel Yin, and says Chang will return to lead OBI. The sale of Optimer’s shares will sever all ties between OBI and its U.S. parent company.
—San Diego-based Pfenex said the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has awarded the company an initial $2.18 million to develop an alternative, needle-free delivery method for its anthrax vaccine. The contract could be worth as much as $22.9 million if all options are exercised. In a statement, Pfenex CEO Bertrand C. Liang said, “A recombinant solution for the production of
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.
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