News

DUBLIN, April 28, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Allergan plc (NYSE: AGN), a leading global biopharmaceutical company, today announced it has successfully completed the acquisition of ZELTIQ^® Aesthetics, Inc., a medical technology company behind a proprietary controlled-cooling fat reducing treatment, CoolSculpting^®. Allergan acquired ZELTIQ^® Aesthetics for approximately $2.4 billion in cash. ZELTIQ^® stockholders approved the transaction during its stockholder meeting held on April 27, 2017. With the acquisition, Allergan adds ZELTIQ's flagship CoolSculpting^® System, the sales leader in the fast-growing cash-pay body contouring segment of medical aesthetics. The combination is expected to be immediately accretive and makes body contouring the third pillar in Allergan's global aesthetics portfolio, joining its leading facial aesthetics and plastic surgery & regenerative medicine businesses.

April 27, 2017, LONDON - Verona Pharma plc (AIM: VRP) ("Verona Pharma"), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercialising innovative therapeutics for the treatment of respiratory diseases with significant unmet medical needs, announces today the pricing of its global offering of an aggregate of 47,399,001 new ordinary shares, comprising 5,768,000 American Depositary Shares ("ADSs") at a price of $13.50 per ADS and 1,255,001 ordinary shares at a price of £1.32 per ordinary share, for aggregate proceeds of approximately $80.0 million before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions. Each ADS offered represents eight ordinary shares of Verona Pharma. The ADSs are being offered in a registered public offering in the United States and the ordinary shares are being offered in a concurrent private placement in Europe and other countries outside of the United States and Canada (together, the "Global Offering").

BOSTON, April 24, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Paratek Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq:PRTK), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of innovative therapies based upon tetracycline chemistry, today announced that it has entered into a collaboration with Zai Lab (Shanghai) Co., Ltd., a biopharmaceutical company based in China, to support the development and commercialization of omadacycline for patients in China.

18 April 2017, London – Verona Pharma plc (AIM: VRP) (“Verona Pharma” or the “Company”), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercialising innovative therapeutics for the treatment of respiratory diseases, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized the initiation of a pharmacokinetic (“PK”) clinical trial in the U.S. for the Company’s product candidate, RPL554, with the acceptance of an Investigational New Drug application (“IND”). RPL554 is a first-in-class, inhaled, dual inhibitor of the enzymes phosphodiesterase 3 and 4 designed to have anti-inflammatory as well as bronchodilator properties, currently in development for the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cystic fibrosis.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr. 10, 2017-- Syros Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SYRS), a biopharmaceutical company pioneering the discovery and development of medicines to control the expression of disease-driving genes, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted the Company's Investigational New Drug (IND) application to advance SY-1365, its first-in-class selective cyclin-dependent kinase 7 (CDK7) inhibitor, into a Phase 1 clinical trial in patients with advanced solid tumor malignancies, including transcriptionally dependent cancers such as triple negative breast, small cell lung and ovarian cancers. Syros is on track to initiate the Phase 1 trial in the second quarter of 2017.

SAN DIEGO, April 6, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Zavante Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing novel therapies to improve the outcomes of hospitalized patients, today announced that the company's investigational product candidate, ZOLYD™ (fosfomycin for injection, also known as ZTI-01), met the primary endpoint of statistical non-inferiority to piperacillin/tazobactam in the pivotal ZEUS™ clinical trial in patients with complicated urinary tract infections (cUTI), including acute pyelonephritis (AP). ZOLYD is a first-in-class injectable epoxide antibiotic with a differentiated mechanism of action and broad spectrum of activity against Gram-negative and Gram-positive pathogens, including multi-drug resistant (MDR) pathogens. The ZEUS study was a multi-center, randomized, double-blind Phase 2/3 trial designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of ZOLYD in the treatment of hospitalized adults with cUTI or AP. The primary endpoint of overall success, defined as clinical cure plus microbiologic eradication, was assessed in the microbiologic-modified intent-to-treat population at the test-of-cure visit (Day 19). In the study, ZOLYD met the primary endpoint of statistical non-inferiority compared to piperacillin/tazobactam, with an overall success rate of 64.7% (119/184 patients) versus 54.5% (97/178 patients), respectively, a treatment difference of 10.2% (95% CI: -0.4, 20.8). Clinical cure rates were high and similar between treatment groups (90.8% vs. 91.6%, respectively). Zavante plans to present the complete ZEUS study results at an upcoming infectious disease conference, and expects to submit a new drug application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in early 2018.

BOSTON, April 03, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Paratek Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq:PRTK) announced today positive top-line results from a global, pivotal Phase 3 clinical study comparing its once-daily oral and IV, broad spectrum investigational antibiotic, omadacycline, to moxifloxacin in the treatment of patients with community-acquired bacterial pneumonia (CABP). This study represents the second positive Phase 3 registration study of omadacycline, which will be used to support marketing applications to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

Milwaukee, WI – March 30, 2017 – Promentis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a privately-held biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of first-in-class therapies to treat central nervous system disorders, today announced it has completed a third round of equity investment totaling $26,000,000. The Series C investment is led by OrbiMed, F-Prime Capital Partners (formerly Fidelity Biosciences) and Aisling Capital. Existing investors, including Black Pearl GmbH, the Golden Angels Investors and individual investors, also participated in the Series C financing. This financing will enable Promentis to advance its lead compound SXC-2023 through Phase 2 clinical proof of concept. SXC-2023 is a novel small molecule designed to engage System XC-, a CNS target addressing glutamatergic dysfunction and oxidative stress, with a compelling profile across a range of pre-clinical studies.

DUBLIN, Ireland and BOSTON, March 27, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Allergan plc, (NYSE:AGN), a leading global pharmaceutical company and Paratek Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq:PRTK), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of innovative therapies based upon tetracycline chemistry, announced that two (2) Phase 3 trials of sarecycline for the treatment of moderate to severe acne met their 12 week primary efficacy endpoints. Sarecycline is a once-daily, oral, narrow spectrum tetracycline-derived antibiotic with anti-inflammatory properties for the potential treatment of moderate to severe acne in the community setting. Based on these data, Allergan plans to file a New Drug Application (NDA) to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in the second half of this year.

ANN ARBOR, Mich., March 20, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Esperion Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ESPR), the lipid management company focused on developing and commercializing convenient, complementary, cost-effective, once-daily, oral therapies for the treatment of patients with elevated low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), today announced the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently confirmed that Esperion's LDL-C lowering program is adequate to support approval of an LDL-C lowering indication for bempedoic acid.