San Diego Life Sciences Roundup: Ambit, Lithera, Histogen, & More

Downtown San Diego skyline (photo by BVBigelow)

Here’s our wrap up of the latest developments in San Diego’s life sciences community.

—The increasing importance of emerging markets to portfolio companies of life sciences VC Domain Associates led partner Brian Halak to create a new business model in China. Domain, which has offices in San Diego and Princeton, NJ, joined forces the Beijing-based firm Elite Consulting to create Domain Elite, an incubator for in-licensing drug, device, and diagnostic technologies from the West for commercialization in China.

—San Diego’s Ambit Biosciences said it is still “fully committed” to proceeding with mid-stage trials of its anti-cancer drug quizartinib after Japan’s Astellas Pharma exercised its right to terminate their worldwide licensing agreement. Quizartinib is Ambit’s lead drug candidate for patients who have a particularly aggressive form of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and who have relapsed.

—San Diego-based Lithera said it has begun a 500-patient mid-stage trial of salmeterol xinafoate for use as an injectable fat reduction drug. CEO George Mahaffey said Lithera revised its initial formulation of salmeterol to optimize its use in reducing abdominal fat tissue in normal, healthy people who are under 45 years old, and who find it hard to lose their bothersome fat, even though they exercise and eat a healthy diet.

—Histogen, a San Diego regenerative medicine startup, formed a joint venture called PUR Biologics to develop gels that could be used to promote healing and regeneration in bone, tendon, cartilage, spinal disc, and ligament. Histogen formed PUR in Aliso Viejo, CA, with a group of medical device investors.

—In his BioBeat column this week, Luke applied his obsessive knowledge of baseball to his encyclopedic coverage of life sciences. He selected Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:ALNY]]) as his pick for biotech player of the year after the Cambridge, MA, company settled some disputes and forged ahead with RNA interference drugs. He chose Cambridge, MA-based Ironwood Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:IRWD]]) as his wild card player and Hyperion Therapeutics as rookie of the year.

—Adventrx Pharmaceuticals, a San Diego biopharmaceutical, said it had changed its corporate name to Mast Therapeutics. The company also changed its ticker symbol from ANX to (NYSE: [[ticker:MSTX]]). The company has been seeking a partner to advance an anti-cancer drug it had under development, and is now recruiting subjects for a late-stage trial of MST-188, a compound designated for treating sickle cell disease.

 

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.