Halozyme Announces Recall, Pathway Genomics Halts Genetic Test Kit Rollout, Vertex Gets Ready for Hepatitis C Results, & More San Diego Life Sciences News

April was a dry month for life sciences news, but May has been roaring with Halozyme’s product recall, Pathway Genomics’ aborted sales plan, and funding news—lots of funding news. Your Xconomy life sciences briefing begins now.

—San Diego’s Halozyme Therapeutics (NASDAQ: [[ticker:HALO]]) and its manufacturing partner, Baxter Healthcare, announced that they are voluntarily recalling Hylenex, an injectable fluid used to enhance treatment of pediatric dehydration. The companies said they had discovered flakes of glass particles in a limited number of Hylenex vials.

—The FDA put the kibosh on plans by San Diego’s Pathway Genomics to sell over-the-counter genetic tests at the corner Walgreens, the drug store chain operated by the Walgreen Company of Deerfield, IL. The FDA says it wants to retain regulatory oversight of plans by Pathway Genomics and other companies to sell genetic tests and services.

—Nobel laureate K. Barry Sharpless and Scripps Research Institute colleague M.G. Finn told Luke they’re encouraged by the increased attention they’re getting for their work on “click” chemistry. By combining combinatorial chemistry, high-throughput screening, and building chemical libraries of molecular building blocks, they say click chemistry can be used to speed up drug discoveries by making multistep synthesis fast, efficient, and predictable.

—Connect is developing a pilot program with a $100,000 grant from the Biogen Idec Foundation that will send the entrepreneurial founders of early-stage biotech companies into local classrooms to talk with teenagers about their breakthrough innovations and startup companies. Connect CEO Duane Roth says the program was conceived as a way to get young people excited about studying science, technology, engineering, and math.

—Cambridge, MA-based Vertex Pharmaceuticals, which has significant operations in San Diego, is anxiously awaiting the results from three crucial clinical trials of its lead drug candidate for treating hepatitis C. Bob Kaufman, the company’s chief medical officer, told

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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.