Industry news

European VC hits €12.9B in 2015 as activity plunges

PitchBook Blog

The last couple years have seen two peaks for the European venture capital industry, as illustrated in our 2015 Annual European Venture Industry Report. The first was in activity, with just over 3,400 rounds closed in 2014 for a massive €9.3 billion tally—the second was a simply staggering €12.9 billion in VC invested during 2015, even as the number of rounds plummeted from the heights of the prior year. 

FDA releases guidance on post-market steps for improving medical device cybersecurity

Varun Saxena / FierceMedicalDevices

From "poor cybersecurity hygiene" to "I need FDA permission to update this cybersecurity software," the number of trite excuses explaining why medical devices have been left unprotected from cyber-attacks keeps on growing. The FDA took aim at the threat of routine computer viruses that slow down computerized equipment and the potential for a fatal, targeted attack against an individual's infusion pump (or other lifesaving device) by releasing its second draft guidance on ensuring medical device cybersecurity.

Researchers get stem cells to 'beat' with electrical current, offering hope for heart regeneration

Stacy Lawrence / Fierce Medical Devices

Columbia engineering researchers have found that electrical stimulation of human heart muscle cells, or cardiomyocytes, engineered from human stem cells can beat with electrical stimulation. For the first time, they found that this activity actually encouraged the nascent cardiomyocytes to beat autonomously and to transfer that to surrounding cardiomyocytes.

Big Pharma Pushes for New Antibiotic Funds to Fight Superbugs

Cynthia Koons / Bloomberg Business

Pharmaceutical giants including GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Merck & Co. are joining a large group of health-care companies to accelerate the development of drugs and diagnostics for “superbug” infections, trying to come up with a viable commercial model as an increasing number of bacteria become resistant to common antibiotics.

Glass half empty? Pharma staffers about as content as average Americans, survey finds

Beth Snyder Bulik / FiercePharmaMarketing

Unhappy with your pharma job? Join the crowd. In its first job satisfaction survey, Cafepharma found that at least half of pharma employees were at least somewhat unhappy with their jobs, with the most common response--"very unhappy"--given by 28% of the self-selected respondents.

20 January 2016

Allan L. Shaw Joins Syndax Pharmaceuticals As Chief Financial Officer

Syndax Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing entinostat in multiple cancer indications, announced today that the Company has appointed Allan L. Shaw as Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary. Mr. Shaw joins Syndax with more than 20 years of experience as a chief financial officer, industry executive and independent board member of public companies.

EMA says Spain has taken action against drugmaker for shortcomings

Eric Palmer / FeircePharmaManufacturing

Spanish regulators have yanked the manufacturing authorization of a drugmaker there after an inspection left them unimpressed with the drugmaker's controls for keeping products sterile.

Biologics' share of medicine chest grows, and so do the pricing concerns

Mari Serebrov / BioWorld

With biologics making up a larger share of the new drugs approved by the FDA, the pricing of drugs, and the impact of those prices on the U.S. health care budget, is poised to become a bigger issue going forward.

Despite 'choppy' markets, fundamentals strong as health care world heads to JPM

Marie Powers / BioWorld

As investors in biopharma, medtech and affiliated industries descend on San Francisco for the start of the 34th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference (JPM), invited guests and throngs of hangers-on could be forgiven for glancing nervously over their shoulders at the global capital markets.

Good times roll through 2015 as life sciences dealmaking continued torrid pace

Marie Powers / BioWorld

For the third straight year, money flowed like honey in the life sciences sector, with 468 life sciences M&As disclosed in 2015, according to the Thomson Reuters Deals Review, presented in conjunction with the 34th Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. That total represented a 90 percent increase over the trough in 2012 and 11 percent more than in 2014, "which was no slouch," observed Laura Vitez, principal business analyst for Thomson Reuters Life Sciences. The number also compared favorably to an average of 320 M&A deals per year during the 10-year period dating back to 2006.