Robert Coughlin, departing President and CEO of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, will join the JLL Brokerage team as Managing Director in the firm’s Life Sciences industry practice in early 2021. JLL is a registered trademark of Jones Lang LaSalle, a Fortune 500 real estate and investment management company with annual revenue of $18.0 billion in […]

MilliporeSigma will broaden its manufacturing footprint with a combined $47 million investment at its production facilities in Danvers, Massachusetts, and Jaffrey, New Hampshire. These sites supply critical products to customers developing lifesaving therapies, including Covid-19 vaccines, as well as provide products and services for biopharmaceutical manufacturing. These expansions will significantly increase capacity and output at […]

Cambridge-based Catamaran Bio, a biotech developing allogeneic CAR-NK cell therapies to treat cancer, has launched with $42 million in financing. Proceeds will be used to advance the company’s two lead chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-NK cell therapy programs. In addition, funding will expand the company’s integrated and proprietary suite of technologies for designing, genetically engineering, and […]

AstraZeneca and Alexion Pharmaceuticals have entered into a definitive agreement for AstraZeneca to acquire Alexion. The boards of directors of both companies have unanimously approved the acquisition. Subject to receipt of regulatory clearances and approval by shareholders of both companies, the acquisition is expected to close in Q3 2021. AstraZeneca has built a growing scientific presence in oncology, and in cardiovascular, […]

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals has announced FDA approval for lumasiran (brand name Oxlumo), a RNAi therapeutic for PH1 (primary hyperoxaluria type 1), an ultra-rare genetic disease characterized by oxalate overproduction. The excess production of oxalate results in the deposition of calcium oxalate crystals in the kidneys and urinary tract and can lead to the formation of painful […]

Agios Pharmaceuticals has announced that its global Phase 3 ACTIVATE trial of mitapivat met its primary endpoint. ACTIVATE is a double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial evaluating the efficacy and safety of mitapivat as a potential treatment for adults with pyruvate kinase (PK) deficiency, a chronic, lifelong hemolytic anemia, who do not receive regular transfusions. Treatment with […]