NJ-Pennsylvania pharma corridor touted as "one-stop shopping"
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
More could be done to attract international businesses to the geographic area known as the US Mid-Atlantic region, panelists agreed during a session at the recent "Biotech 2011" conference sponsored by the local industry associations, BioNJ and Pennsylvania Bio, in Philadelphia. Dr Franco Lori, founder, president and CEO of ViroStatics, proclaimed that "This region offers everything to serve our needs, and the headline should be [that] it offers one-stop shopping". He urges the associations to "spend time and money" to convey that message, adding that in his view some companies do not realise what the region offers till they actually arrive and set up shop.
You may also be interested in...
ChemoCentryx cuts price to get $45M IPO away
ChemoCentryx has successfully completed its initial public offering on Nasdaq, raising $45 million to help support its multiple R&D programmes. It sold 4.5 million shares at $10, a somewhat less ambitious debut than it had originally planned in January when it wanted to sell four million shares at $14-$16. The reduced offer is a sign of the challenging nature of the IPO market, but ChemoCentryx's assessment of its own worth was at least closer to the market’s assessment that Cempra which got its IPO away on 6 February at valuation that was less than two-thirds of that implied by its initial prospectus (scripintelligence.com, 7 February 2012).
Ampio raises $16.9M as it advances PhIII premature ejaculation drug
Ampio Pharmaceuticals, a development-stage company, initially raised $15 million which was boosted to $16.9 million by the exercise of overallotments by brokers. The shares were offered at $3.25, an 8.5% discount to the closing price of $3.66 on 12 July. The market pushed them down slightly further to 3.21 on 13 July.
Money talks: Verastem leverages IPO to build cancer stem cell pipeline
Verastem, a cancer stem cells startup, has moved quickly to build its pipeline just five months after an initial public offering. Management at the Cambridge, Massachusetts firm believes that recent moves have accelerated Verastem's clinical development plans by a year.