The obesity market has not generated any blockbuster success stories for the biopharmaceutical industry, but Vivus Inc. still sells the prescription weight loss drug Qsymia (phentermine and topiramate) and recently raised cash so it can buy more products to keep its sales representatives busy.
Finance Watch: In Obesity, Vivus Raises Cash For Deals, Orexigen Finds A Buyer
Public Company Edition: Strategies diverge in obesity as Vivus restructures debt and raises cash for a new deal and new focus, after Orexigen nears a sale of the company via bankruptcy court. Also, Clovis leads recent offerings, while layoffs are on the table at Catabasis.
More from Financing
• By
Public Company Edition: Stock valuations are falling due to political, economic and regulatory uncertainty, resulting in fewer large public offerings, more alternative financings and cost cuts. Carisma, Tenaya, BioAtla, Arbutus, Nkarta, Alector and Adaptimmune announced layoffs.
• By
CEO Kris Elverum told Scrip about the start-up’s platform for editing RNA to correct genetic variants that cause harm and to reproduce healthy variants as a means of treating disease.
• By
The four-year-old firm said it plans to advance programs toward the clinic from the funding round, which comes just over a year after signing two major pharma partnerships.
• By
Private Company Edition: The latest group of drug developers to announce venture capital financings is remarkable for its geographic diversity, from Character Biosciences’ $93m series B round in the US to Augustine’s $85m series B in Belgium to a $29.2m series C for Aculys in Japan.
More from Business
• By
The German firm’s chairman, Hubertus von Baumbach, is adopting a ‘wait-and-see’ approach to the threat of pharma tariffs.
• By
Trump announced a 26% reciprocal tariff on India but a country-agnostic exemption of pharmaceuticals implies that the interests of Indian firms and the US consumer are protected for now. What is Indian pharma’s business exposure and what is domestic industry saying?
• By
Industry lobbied for pharmaceuticals to be exempt from Trump’s sweeping US tariffs and the effort appears to have paid off. J&J, Lilly and Merck & Co. even got shout outs.