A year after dealing its Liris bladder treatment to Allergan in a deal worth up to $588 million, Taris Biomedical raised another $32 million to put toward the implant, which is designed to deliver drugs directly to the bladder. Allergan paid $67.5 million in cash in August 2014 for Liris, a drug-device combination designed to deliver lidocaine to treat […]
Unilife taps CEO Shortall for loan to forestall default
Unilife (NSDQ:UNIS) yesterday said it tapped chairman & CEO Alan Shortall for a loan so it could avoid defaulting on its $60 million debt with OrbiMed. Wayne, Pa.-based Unilife said it borrowed $600,000 from Shortall so it could maintain the $5 million cash balance required by the OrbiMed loan and still make a payment on the loan. […]
Losses widening, Unilife pares workforce by 17%
Unilife (NSDQ:UNIS) yesterday said it plans to lay off about 50 workers, or roughly 17% of its workforce, after reporting wider losses for its fiscal 4th quarter and full-year 2015 and missing expectations on Wall Street. Saying it now has a lineup of products to cover its target markets, York, Pa.-based Unilife said it’s looking to […]
FDA to review Proteus 'smart pill' with Otsuka's Abilify anti-depressant
Otsuka Pharmaceutical (TYO:4578) and Proteus Digital Health said yesterday that the FDA will review a combination of the Proteus “smart pill” and Otsuka’s Abilify anti-depressant drug. The companies said the FDA accepted their new drug application for the drug-device combination, using the Proteus ingestible sensor and Otsuka’s aripiprazole drug in patients with serious mental illnesses such as major […]
Ex-Unilife whistleblower backs down, apologizes, pays up to settle counter-suit
A former Unilife (NSDQ:UNIS) employee who accused the company and its management of misleading investors withdrew a whistleblower lawsuit, apologized for ever filing it and agreed to pay an unspecified amount to settle a counter-claim, the company said today. Talbot Smith, Unilife’s former vice president of integrated supply chain, accused the drug delivery device maker and its senior managers […]
Bellerophon plunges on failed cardiac implant trial
Bellerophon Therapeutics (NSDQ:BLPH) said today that its bioabsorbable cardiac matrix failed to meet both the primary and secondary endpoints in a 303-patient clinical trial, sending its share price down nearly -63% today. BCM is a liquid medical device injected into the coronary artery leading to the damaged area of a heart, and is designed for use after […]
Teva Pharmaceutical and Microchips Biotech ink $35m deal for drug-device combo
Teva Pharmaceutical (NYSE:TEVA) and Microchips Biotech said they inked a $35 million co-development deal to explore using Microchips’ implantable drug delivery device with Teva’s line of drugs. The wireless Microchips device can store 100s of doses for months or even years and be programmed to release the drug at precise times or schedules, the companies said yesterday. “The […]
Intarcia adds $225m for Type II diabetes trial
Intarcia Therapeutics yesterday took its total raise to more than $1 billion with a $225 million funding round it plans to use to run clinical trials and commercialize its the drug-device combination treatment it’s developing for Type II diabetes.