This week’s assortment of San Diego life sciences news includes a sweet CEO interview, a dollop of FDA approval, a savory corporate acquisition, and other morsels for your enjoyment. Best of all, our news is zero calorie—and it begins now.
—One interesting tidbit of life sciences news occurred earlier this month, when Roche Chairman told the Swiss newspaper SonntagsZeitung the pharmaceutical giant had dropped it’s bid to acquire San Diego’s Illumina (Nasdaq: ticker[[ILMN]]). But Illumina CEO Jay Flatley gave up even more interesting fodder in a wide-ranging interview with Xconomy’s Luke Timmerman. Among other things, Flatley says Illumina’s didn’t move to acquire Verinata Health to compete directly with Sequenom, one of Illumina’s biggest customers, in prenatal genetic testing. Oh really?
—San Diego-based Santarus (Nasdaq: [[ticker:SNTS]]) said the FDA approved its extended release drug for treating patients with ulcerative colitis. Santarus combined the steroid drug budesonide with its drug delivery technology, which deposits budesonide along the length of the colon. The company plans to begin marketing the drug as Uceris in March.
—San Diego scientific software developer Accelrys (Nasdaq: [[ticker:ACCL]]) said it had acquired Vialis, a longtime strategic partner based in Liestal, Switzerland, that serves the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, chemicals, and agro-science industries. Accelrys said it had paid
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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