A group of pharmaceutical companies, including Allergan (NYSE:AGN) and Merck (NYSE:MRK), have asked the Supreme Court to review a case between the industry players and patients regarding the design of the companies’ eye-droppers, according to a report from the AP. In the on-going legal debate, patient groups have claimed that the companies’ devices dispense large drops of medication […]
Allergan
Tribe looks to stop patent board’s review of Restasis IP
Allergan (NYSE:AGN) and the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe asked the Federal Circuit last week to stop the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board from reviewing the IP for Allergan’s blockbuster eye drug, Restasis. The move comes in response to the board’s February decision that sovereign immunity does not shield tribes from patent challenges. The board’s ruling […]
Senate bill looks to block tribal patent deals with pharma
Months after Allergan (NYSE:AGN) struck a controversial patent deal with a Native American tribe in New York, lawmakers are angling to make sure that it can’t happen again. Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ar), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo) David Perdue (R-Ga), Joni Ernst (R-Ia) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa) introduced a bill this week that would prevent patent owners from […]
Anthem exec chairman joins Proteus board | Personnel Moves – Feb. 26, 2018
Proteus Digital Health announced earlier this month that Anthem‘s (NYSE:ANTM) executive chairman, Joseph Swedish, joined the company’s board of directors. Swedish served as Anthem’s president & chief executive from 2013 until he was appointed executive chairman in 2018. “Proteus has created a compelling solution to a problem that has plagued the pharmaceutical industry for decades: […]
Patent board rules Mohawk tribe is not immune to challenges over Restasis IP
The U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board ruled last week that the tribal immunity granted to Native American tribes in the U.S. does not shield tribes from patent challenges. The ruling is a setback for Allergan (NYSE:AGN); the pharmaceutical company transferred patent rights for its blockbuster eye drug, Restasis, to the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe last […]
Pieris Pharmaceuticals prices $44m public offering
Pieris Pharmaceuticals (NSDQ:PIRS) today priced an underwritten public offering of 5.5 million shares of its common stock at $8.00 per share. The company said it expects to generate $44 million from the offering, which it will use to fund the pre-clinical and clinical development of its pipeline. The offering also includes a 30-day option for underwriters […]
Rani Therapeutics nabs $53m for robotic pill injection tech
Rani Therapeutics has raised $53 million to support manufacturing as it gears up for clinical trials of its robotic pill technology. New investors like GeneScience Pharmaceuticals and Shire (NSDQ:SHPG) joined existing investors like Alphabet’s GV, Novartis (NYSE:NVS) and AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN). Rani Therapeutics, an InCube Lab spin-out started in 2012, has developed a capsule that delivers an intestinal injection […]
Allergan talks taxes and competition in 2018 outlook
Allergan (NYSE:AGN) had a busy, and occasionally fraught, 2017. After the company inked a controversial deal with a Native American tribe to shield its Restasis patents from review, a federal judge in Texas invalidated the IP, helping to clear the way for generics. And just last week, Allergan announced that it would slash 1,400 jobs in […]
Facing competition for Restasis, Allergan moves to cut costs by slashing 1,400 jobs
Allergan (NYSE:AGN) said this week that it plans to cut more than 5% of its workforce in an attempt to cut costs. The drug-maker is facing competition from up-coming generics to its dry-eye drug, Restasis. The company said it anticipates taking a $125 million hit from the job cuts, the majority of which will be noted […]
How this biotech plans to go up against big pharma with its eye disease products
Shankar Musunuri has spent time in both the pharmaceutical world and the biotech arena – after 15 years at Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), he went on to launch several biotech start-ups. As co-founder, chairman & chief executive of Ocugen, he is looking to bring eye disease products to the patients that big pharma’s drugs have left out. “There’s […]