The biotech CEO who promised to end “thou­sands of years of mor­phine and opi­ate ad­dic­tion” and al­leged­ly told in­vestors they could re­al­ize huge gains by in­vest­ing in his com­pa­ny — which he said was worth $1 bil­lion dol­lars be­fore it rapid­ly ran out of cash — has been con­vict­ed of fraud by a Boston ju­ry.

Frank Reynolds, CEO of Pixar­Bio and for­mer head of In­Vi­vo Ther­a­peu­tics, was found guilty of ly­ing to in­vestors to dri­ve up the stock price, Law360 re­port­ed. He was con­vict­ed on all counts, in­clud­ing se­cu­ri­ties fraud, ma­nip­u­la­tive trad­ing and ob­struc­tion of jus­tice.

Pros­e­cu­tors ac­cused Reynolds of false­ly telling in­vestors that Pixar­Bio had raised $30 mil­lion and was with­in two years of bring­ing a re­place­ment for opi­oid painkillers to mar­ket. Ken­neth Strom­s­land, the for­mer VP of in­vestor re­la­tions at Pixar­Bio, tes­ti­fied that Reynolds led in­vestors to be­lieve that the com­pa­ny was in talks to be bought by Pur­due Phar­ma, the mak­ers of Oxy­Con­tin.

Strom­s­land, along with M Jay Herod, a friend of Reynolds, pled guilty to fraud charges ear­li­er this year.

Reynolds’ de­fense at­tor­ney, David Ax­el­rod, ar­gued Reynolds had an “hon­est­ly held, sin­cere be­lief” that the com­pa­ny would suc­ceed.

Found­ed in 2013, Pixar­Bio re­verse merged its way on­to the pub­lic mar­ket in 2016, while Reynolds tout­ed his con­nec­tions to the fa­mous MIT pro­fes­sor Robert Langer. Bare­ly a year af­ter they an­nounced their stock was over­sub­scribed with an ex­pect­ed $30 mil­lion raised, the com­pa­ny ap­peared to be in sham­bles. Amid an SEC in­ves­ti­ga­tion, they re­duced staff from 27 to 10 and were forced to leave their $23,341 per-month Med­ford of­fice for a $3,003 of­fice in Salem, New Hamp­shire. The in­dict­ments came in April 2018.

The three be­gan trad­ing de­cep­tive­ly to raise the stock price in 2016, pros­e­cu­tors al­leged, and con­tin­ued in­to 2017.  They co­or­di­nat­ed moves and at times paid ar­ti­fi­cial­ly high stock prices in or­der to raise the com­pa­ny’s val­ue, the gov­ern­ment said.

An SEC com­plaint said the com­pa­ny raised $12.7 mil­lion from 211 in­vestors. Some of those in­vestors launched a class ac­tion suit against the com­pa­ny.

In ad­di­tion to in­vestors, Strom­s­land and the pros­e­cu­tor de­scribed Reynolds mis­lead­ing em­ploy­ees in some­times fan­ci­ful ways. Strom­s­land said Reynolds told peo­ple he was par­a­lyzed from a back in­jury and gave em­ploy­ees a signed pic­ture of the ceil­ing he stared up at for 7 years, ac­cord­ing to Law360. US at­tor­ney Leslie Wright said Reynolds lied about cur­ing his own paral­y­sis.

After being struck by a rare disease as a healthy third year medical student, David Fajgenbaum began an arduous journey chasing his own cure. Amidst the hustle of this year’s JP Morgan conference, the digital trials platform Medable partnered with Endpoints Studio to share Dr. Fajgenbaum’s story with the drug development industry.

What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation between Medable CEO Dr. Michelle Longmire and Dr. Fajgenbaum, and it is full of lessons for biotech executives charged with bringing the next generation of medicines to patients.

In the first step of what’s likely to be a long and uphill battle for the drugmaker, the FDA has accepted Novartis’s BLA submission for a new multiple sclerosis drug and given it priority review. The PDUFA date for the potential blockbuster drug is in June.

The drug, known as ofatumumab or Arzerra, has performed consistently well across late-stage trials in patients with the most common form of MS, including in head-to-head studies against Sanofi’s old blockbuster Aubagio. But, if the drug is approved, Novartis will find itself in a crosstown game of catch-up; since a 2017 approval, Roche’s Ocrevus has become the second best-selling MS drug on the market, nearly eclipsing Biogen’s Tecfidera last quarter with over a $1 billion in sales.

American patients who suffer from conditions other than Covid-19 could feel the impact of the coronavirus due to shortage of drugs — as 150 prescription drugs are now reportedly on a list of at-risk therapies. The list spans “antibiotics, generics and some branded drugs without alternatives,” Axios reported citing sources familiar with the list. The FDA declined to comment.

Although factories in China are gradually reopening, restrictions in travel and disruptions at transit hubs are still slowing down production. An Indian company that relies on active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) from China told Bloomberg last week that it’s seeing prices of commonly used drugs jump by 40% to 70%.

Zoetis forked over $85 million in 2017 to acquire Nexvet Biopharma and its pipeline of monoclonal antibodies. Juergen Horn, Nexvet’s former chief product development officer, has now secured $15 million for his own biologic company for animals: Invetx.

Buoyed by emerging advances in gene therapies for humans, scientists have started looking at harnessing the technology for animals setting up companies such as Penn-partnered Scout Bio and George Church-founded Rejuvenate Bio. But akin to Nexvet, Invetx is working on leveraging the time-tested science of monoclonal antibodies to treat chronic diseases that afflict man’s best friend.

As the coronavirus originating out of Wuhan spreads to South Korea, Italy and Iran, stoking already intense fears of a pandemic, GlaxoSmithKline has found another pair of trusted hands to place its adjuvant system. China’s Clover Biopharmaceuticals will add the adjuvant to its preclinical, protein-based vaccine candidate against SARS-CoV-2.

Clover, which is based in the inland city of Chengdu, boasts of a platform dubbed Trimer-Tag that produces covalently-trimerized fusion proteins. Its candidate, COVID-19 S-Trimer, resembles the viral spike (S)-protein found in the virus.

To provide researchers with more accurate and accessible data about historic drug approvals, the FDA on Friday released a dataset containing information about all new drugs and biologics approved by the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) dating back to 1985.

“FDA created the compilation to facilitate data accessibility, transparency, and accuracy when researchers seek information about an approved drug,” the FDA writes, adding that the compilation should accurately reflect “the state of each application at the time of initial regulatory approval.”