Recent posts and comments

• Isis Extends Timeline on Cholesterol-Lowering Drug, FDA Delays Review of Cadence Pain Reliever, Fate Therapeutics Raises $30 Million, & More San Diego Life Sciences News

  Drug development programs got extended at two San Diego life sciences companies, while others had some good news on the fund-raising front. We wrap it all up for you here.

  —... Read more »

• Biotech Meets Cleantech: GenVault Aims to Deep Six the Laboratory Deep Freeze

  GenVault wants to bring biological samples in from the cold. For decades, the biological samples used to diagnose or study disease have been stored in freezers, which use a lot of... Read more »

• Trius Therapeutics Reveals Plans for IPO, SpectraScience Raises $4.3M, Sequenom Tightens its Belt, & More San Diego Life Sciences News

  Some San Diego life sciences companies reported a burst of new financing, while embattled Sequenom told investors it’s trying to conserve its available cash. Here’s our rundown of the latest highlights:... Read more »

• Sequenom Looks to Prolong Operations as Available Cash Runs Low

  San Diego’s embattled Sequenom, which halted the debut of a new diagnostic product over mishandled data, is now considering steps to conserve cash. In an SEC document filed Monday, the life... Read more »

• Student Dissertation Launches San Diego Life Sciences Tools Company, Sirigen

  The work leading to Brent Gaylord’s dissertation on using light-emitting polymers to detect bits of DNA was more far more than an academic exercise. His initial paper, and the intellectual... Read more »

• Novocell Gets $20 Million Award

  San Diego’s Novocell has received a disease team award totaling $20 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) to fund work on its cell therapy for type 2 diabetes.... Read more »

• New York Biotech Sues Sequenom for Fraud

  Xenomics, a New York-based developer of molecular diagnostic technologies, says it has filed a suit in New York state court alleging that San Diego’s Sequenom fraudulently misrepresented the status of... Read more »

• UK’s Enigma Looks to San Diego, Life Gets Sweeter for Senomyx, Arena Says Obesity Drug Is Not “Wimpy,” & More San Diego Life Sciences News

  San Diego’s life sciences news picked up a bit last week amid fresh signs of the area’s growing prominence in the laboratory tools and diagnostics sectors.

  —Carlsbad, CA-based Helixis, a... Read more »

• Diabetes drug from San Diego’s Amylin caught up in Aussie Brouhaha

  From Australia comes word that San Diego-based Amylin Pharmaceuticals’ biggest drug, exenatide (Byetta), has been caught up in a controversy over a diabetes report co-sponsored by Amylin’s marketing partner, Eli Lilly... Read more »

• Verdezyne and Cardium Therapeutics Get Funding, Illumina Fires New Volley in Patent War, a New Stem Cell Technology Surfaces, and Other San Diego Life Sciences News

  Word that several San Diego companies successfully raised funds punctuated an otherwise light week for life sciences news here. A rundown of the highlights:

  —Synthetic biology company Verdezyne received a $1.7... Read more »

• San Diego’s Ardea Biosciences Sees Potential for Gout Drug in Combination Treatment

  San Diego’s Ardea Biosciences (NASDAQ: RDEA) appears to have stubbed a toe in its development of RDEA 594 as a first-line treatment for gout. Data presented at a medical meeting... Read more »

• Fill’er up: San Diego’s Algae-Based Energy Sector Grows

  In wake of last week’s Algae Biomass Summit, we thought now might be a good time to take stock of San Diego’s biofuels/biomass energy sector. After identifying a mini-cluster of eight... Read more »

• Eastbourne Dumps Amylin Shares, Illumina Inks Licensing Deal, Avanir Releases Pseudobulbar Affect Data, & More San Diego Life Sciences News

  A quiet epilogue to last spring’s heated Amylin proxy battle was the lead story in an otherwise slow week for San Diego life sciences news.

  —Eastbourne Capital, which won... Read more »

• Illumina licenses Orchid Cellmark DNA technology

  San Diego’s Illumina (NASDAQ: [[ticker: ILMN]]) has licensed worldwide rights to commercially develop Orchid Cellmark’s proprietary single base nucleotide extension technology for forensics and diagnostics. Princeton, N.J.-based Orchid (NASDAQ: ORCH)... Read more »

• Justice Department Joins Sequenom Probe, Accumetrics Raises $16.5, Transdel’s Topical Pain Reliever Gets Mixed Results, & More San Diego Life Sciences News

  The life sciences news was relatively light over the last week, except perhaps for Sequenom, the medical diagnostics company that has yet to publicly disclose much about its misconduct in handling... Read more »

• As Algae Summit Begins, San Diego Yearns to Make Houston Green With Envy

  The 2009 Algae Biomass Summit gets underway in San Diego today, offering the latest sign of the algae biofuels sector that has bloomed in San Diego in recent years. Cleantech San... Read more »

• San Diego Agri-Biotech Startup Moves to Challenge Monsanto on its Own Turf

  San Diego’s little Cibus Global is preparing to one day take on Monsanto, the Fortune 500 agri-industry colossus and leading producer of genetically engineered seed. The bioscience company last month formed... Read more »

• Neurocrine Cuts Office Costs

  One-time biotech darling Neurocrine Biosciences (NASDAQ: NBIX) says it is vacating one of two buildings at its headquarters campus to save $27 million a year. The company paid an immediate... Read more »

• Life Tech and Illumina, Two San Diego Biotech Giants, in Patent Dispute

  In what is shaping up as the battle of San Diego’s biotechnology tools titans, Life Technologies (NASDAQ: LIFE) has filed a patent-infringement suit against rival Illumina, claiming that some of... Read more »

• Swine Flu Spurs Investor Interest in San Diego Biomedical Firms

  San Diego’s Quidel, which signaled it would report better-than-expected quarterly results on Sept. 10, isn’t the only San Diego biomedical company to get a boost from worries about swine flu. At... Read more »