Healthcare - Today Stories

Pharmapacks, a leading e-commerce company with a proprietary technology platform that empowers brands to reach millions of consumers with a complete and cost-effective logistics, fulfillment, marketing and sales solution, today announced it has raised $32.5 million by selling a minority stake at an undisclosed valuation. The strategic round was led by multinational CPG company RB (LSE: RB) with additional investments from McKesson Ventures, Sealed Air (NYSE: SEE) and The Emerson Group. Pharmapacks sells both direct-to-consumer through leading online marketplaces including Amazon, Walmart.com, and eBay among others, as well as on Pharmapacks.com. In addition to selling well-known everyday consumer goods, Pharmapacks serves as a "launch pad" for emerging brands by giving carefully sele…

Arjo, a market-leading supplier of medical devices and solutions, has entered into an exclusive partnership with Next Step Dynamics, a Swedish technology company specialising in predictive analytics, for development and sales of solutions for preventive healthcare. According to the terms of the partnership, Arjo has committed to spend SEK 70 M on development projects for solutions within the area of predictive analytics. “This partnership is very much in line with our digitalization strategy and offers a fantastic opportunity for us to develop innovations that can really make a difference for both the users and healthcare professionals, as well as for society in general, for example by reducing the cost of care,” says Joacim Lindoff. For elderly people, falling presents a high risk of in…

BridgeBio Pharma today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. to acquire cyclic pyranopterin monophosphate (cPMP; ALXN1101), a synthetic enzyme co-factor therapy for patients with the ultra-rare disease caused by molybdenum cofactor deficiency (MoCD) Type A. In addition, BridgeBio announced that it was launching a new subsidiary, Origin Biosciences, with sufficient capital to support clinical development of ALXN1101 through potential regulatory approval and commercialization. MoCD is an ultra-rare autosomal recessive inborn error of metabolism. The disease is caused by a mutation in the MOCS1 gene and leads to defective production of cPMP. Clinical signs of MoCD present shortly after birth and progress rapidly. Newborns with MoCD experience diff…

WebMD Health Corp., an Internet Brands company and the leader in health information services for consumers and physicians, today announced that it has acquired Jobson Healthcare Information (JHI), a leading provider of information, education and marketing services in key healthcare markets.   Owning brands that have been leaders for over 50 years, JHI has long been recognized for its diversified portfolio of healthcare information, education and marketing services targeted to a broad segment of the healthcare industry, including physicians, pharmacists and eye care professionals. Through its comprehensive product offerings and platforms, JHI can reach more than one million health care professionals. "JHI's commitment to delivering quality information and services to the healthcare i…

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) today announced that it has received a binding offer from Fortive Corporation (NYSE: FTV) to acquire its Advanced Sterilization Products (ASP) business, a division of Ethicon, Inc.*, for an aggregate value of approximately $2.8 billion, consisting of $2.7 billion of cash proceeds from Fortive and $0.1 billion of retained net receivables. ASP is a global leader in innovative infection prevention solutions with 2017 net revenue of approximately $775 million. "As we balance the interests of all our stakeholders to deliver the greatest value to customers, healthcare providers and shareholders, we must continuously assess strategic fit and explore alternatives for our businesses," said Shlomi Nachman, Company Group Chairman, Interventional Solutions and S…

Blueprint Medicines Corporation (NASDAQ: BPMC), a leader in discovering and developing targeted kinase medicines for patients with genomically defined diseases, and CStone Pharmaceuticals, a privately-held biopharmaceutical company devoted to developing a new generation of innovative drugs, today announced an exclusive collaboration and license agreement for the development and commercialization of avapritinib, BLU-554 and BLU-667 in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, either as monotherapies or combination therapies. Discovered and developed by Blueprint Medicines, avapritinib, BLU-554 and BLU-667 are potent and highly selective investigational kinase medicines that have each demonstrated clinical proof-of-concept in genomically defined subsets of patients with cancer. Blueprint…

Admescope Ltd, a pre-clinical ADME-Tox service provider today announced the acquisition of MetaSafe AB, a company specialised in the field of metabolic biotransformation research. MetaSafe, based in Södertälje, Sweden, is a contract research organisation working with small, midsize and large pharmaceutical companies in the area of drug biotransformation/metabolism. MetaSafe is especially focusing on clinical phase drug metabolism studies from safety perspective, but also provides services for preclinical stage of drug development. Admescope, having the headquarters and laboratories in Oulu, Finland, will continue to operate MetaSafe’s business in Södertälje. This acquisition will strengthen Admescope’s drug metabolism services further to clinical phase projects, as well as gives the bene…

Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC today announced a five-year alliance with Boston University, an internationally recognized research university and member of the Association of American Universities, that will help accelerate the vision of creating a world without lung cancer.   As part of the alliance, a Johnson & Johnson Innovation Lung Cancer Center at Boston University will be established, allowing close collaboration between Boston University investigators and members of the Lung Cancer Initiative within Johnson & Johnson to work together to develop solutions that prevent, intercept and cure lung cancer.  Avrum Spira, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Pathology and Bioinformatics, Boston University has joined Johnson & Johnson Innovation as Global Head, Lung…

Cyxone AB (publ) announced today that the company has decided to complete the acquisition of drug candidate Rabeximod and issue approximately 1.9 million shares to complete the payment to OxyPharma AB. Cyxone entered into an acquisition agreement with OxyPharma in June 2017 for the drug candidate Rabeximod and now chooses to complete the transaction. The deal has strengthened Cyxone's development portfolio with a candidate in clinical phase II program and broadened the company's portfolio in autoimmune diseases. Cyxone entered an agreement to acquire Rabeximod, a drug candidate in phase II development for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), in June 2017, with an arrangement that the company could choose to decide when the transaction would be completed, and payment will be paid under specific cond…

Syndax Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: SNDX), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing an innovative pipeline of cancer therapies, and Nektar Therapeutics (Nasdaq: NKTR) today announced a non-exclusive, clinical collaboration to evaluate the safety and efficacy of Nektar's NKTR-214, a CD122-biased agonist, in combination with entinostat, Syndax's oral, small molecule Class 1 specific HDAC inhibitor, in patients with metastatic melanoma who have previously progressed on treatment with an anti-PD-1 (programmed death receptor-1) agent. Under the terms of the agreement, Syndax and Nektar will collaborate on a study to evaluate the combination. The Phase 1b portion of the trial aims to establish safety and a recommended dose for the combination regimen and will be followed by a Pha…

WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (NYSE: WCG) announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Meridian Health Plan of Michigan, Inc., Meridian Health Plan of Illinois, Inc., and MeridianRx, a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM), (collectively, "Meridian") for $2.5 billion in cash. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2018, subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals. Meridian expects to generate more than $4.3 billion in total revenue in 2018. As a result of this transaction, WellCare will diversify its Medicaid portfolio through the addition of Michigan, where Meridian has the No. 1 Medicaid market position; deepen its Medicaid business in Illinois; and acquire an integrated PBM platform. Meridian is one of the largest privately…

HCTec, a leading provider of healthcare workforce optimization solutions, announced today a multi-year electronic medical record (EMR) application managed services support agreement with Adventist Health.  HCTec is providing technical and clinical support for Adventist's EMR needs in its Oregon facilities.  Adventist Health, which operates primarily on a Cerner clinical and revenue cycle platform, has more than 50 ambulatory clinics that also utilize Epic software in the Pacific Northwest.  This partnership transfers EMR support operations for the ambulatory clinics to HCTec.  "Our application managed services division is on the forefront of this innovative model for EMR support," said HCTec's Founder and President William Bartholomew.  "We are excited to begin th…

Avara Pharmaceutical Services, a world-class contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), today announced that it has agreed to acquire the largest sterile manufacturing facility for injectable medicines in Canada from a leading global pharmaceutical company, as part of a continuing expansion of its global footprint. "This acquisition represents our first entry into the Canadian market and further expands our sterile processing capability, which is in very high demand," said Timothy C. Tyson, Avara's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "It comes with a world-class development center and a dedicated team of experts that will support us in delivering high-quality pharmaceuticals that meet or exceed customer expectations and regulatory requirements." The proposed acquisitio…

Eisai Inc. and Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has extended the action date for the supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for lenvatinib for the potential first-line treatment of patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The FDA has indicated that the extension of the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) date is needed to allow additional time for review of the application. The agency expects to complete the review on or before August 24, 2018, thus extending the target action date by a standard extension period of three months from the original PDUFA action date of May 24, 2018. Eisai, as the marketing authorization holder, is working closely with the FDA to suppo…

Strata Oncology, a precision oncology platform company, today announced the close of a $26 million USD Series B funding round.  New investors Pfizer Ventures, Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Deerfield Management and Renaissance Venture Capital Fund were joined by existing investors Arboretum Ventures and Baird Capital. Strata Oncology will use the new funding to: Expand the Strata Precision Oncology Network, a group of leading health systems adopting Strata's platform to systematize tumor molecular profiling and precision therapy trials. Further develop the company's clinical-genomic data and software solutions to streamline health system precision oncology workflows and catalyze new clinical research opportunities. Submit the company's tumor molecular profiling assay, StrataNG…

Amgen (NASDAQ: AMGN) today announced a groundbreaking collaboration with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Connect2Health Task Force, the University of Kentucky (UK) Markey Cancer Center and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Design Lab to support the improvement of cancer outcomes. The L.A.U.N.C.H. (Linking & Amplifying User-Centered Networks through Connected Health) program will use human-centered design methodologies to identify the needs of patients, caregivers and healthcare providers. The program will use these insights to develop and deliver a connected solution for patients to be able to better manage their cancer symptoms. While the project will initially be focused on underserved populations in rural, Appalachian Ken…

Aptinyx Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing transformative therapies for challenging neurologic disorders, today announced Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN) has exercised its option to acquire drug candidate AGN-241751, an oral small-molecule N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor modulator. Aptinyx discovered AGN-241751 utilizing its proprietary chemistry platform and the compound was selected for further development by Allergan under its ongoing research collaboration with Aptinyx. Allergan was granted option rights to a limited number of small molecules from the Aptinyx discovery platform under a research collaboration initiated in conjunction with its 2015 acquisition of Naurex, the predecessor company from which Aptinyx and its platform were spun out. Through that transa…

A unique non-estrogen prescription therapy, Intrarosa™, has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and by the European Medical Agency (EMA), for the treatment of the most bothersome symptom of vulvovaginal atrophy, due to menopause, known as dyspareunia.  Mundipharma has been granted the commercial rights to Intrarosa™ (Prasterone) in the Middle East and Africa as part of an agreement signed between Mundipharma and Endoceutics, Inc.  Intrarosa™ (Prasterone) has been developed for the treatment of women experiencing moderate to severe dyspareunia, which is an outcome of vulvovaginal atrophy, that occurs due to menopause. Intrarosa™ is a unique non-estrogen product that is administered locally in order to exert an action limited to the vagi…

Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc. (NASDAQ: RARE), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of novel products for rare and ultra-rare diseases, Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co. Ltd (Kyowa Hakko Kirin), and Kyowa Kirin International PLC (Kyowa Kirin International) today announced that the Phase 3 study of Crysvita® (burosumab) met its primary endpoint demonstrating that Crysvita was superior to oral phosphate and active vitamin D (conventional therapy) in improving rickets in children with X-linked hypophosphatemia (XLH) after 40 weeks of treatment (LS Mean treatment difference  of +1.14, p<0.0001). The study also showed improvement in important metabolic and functional measures with Crysvita treatment, and a safety profile similar to that observed in other Crysvita pediatric XLH stu…

Advicenne (Euronext: ADVIC), a specialist pharmaceutical company focused on the development of pediatric-friendly therapeutics for the treatment of orphan renal and neurological diseases, announces it has entered into a partnership with the European Society for Paediatric Nephrology (ESPN). This partnership, which will initially last for 3 years, will enable data collection on distal Renal Tubular Acidosis (dRTA) in Europe. This collaboration will be marked by the opening of a survey on the management of dRTA in Europe (mainly covering the 5 largest European countries). The database will gather real-life data on health evolution and care process of 400 dRTA patients with primarily the genetic form of the disease in Europe. The database will be used to provide compelling information on pat…