Rick Klaus­ner Lyell

→ Lyell chief Rick Klaus­ner con­tin­ues to build up his net­work of com­pa­nies beaver­ing away at new cell ther­a­pies. The Glax­o­SmithK­line part­ner led a $45 mil­lion E round for Eu­re­ka Ther­a­peu­tics, which is work­ing with en­gi­neered T cells on sol­id tu­mors. Klaus­ner, a for­mer di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Can­cer In­sti­tute, al­so found­ed Juno and Grail. The fund­ing comes with a strate­gic re­search col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween Eu­re­ka and Lyell.

→ Shares of Blue­print Med­i­cines $BPMC bounced high­er Tues­day morn­ing af­ter the Cam­bridge, MA-based biotech re­port­ed that their mid-stage study for avapri­tinib in pa­tients with in­do­lent sys­temic mas­to­cy­to­sis of­fered pos­i­tive da­ta. Blue­print says that at 16 weeks they record­ed a sig­nif­i­cant de­cline of 30% in pa­tients’ to­tal symp­tom score. An­drew Berens at SVB Leerink not­ed: “While we be­lieve Ay­vak­it in iSM pro­vides an­oth­er val­ue dri­ver for BPMC shares, we ac­knowl­edge the fun­da­men­tal val­u­a­tion dis­con­nec­tion from cur­rent BPMC shares amid mar­ket tur­moil.”

→ Wel­comed to the Hong Kong Stock Ex­change with open arms, In­no­Care has bagged $288 mil­lion in its IPO, Reuters re­port­ed. The biotech — which has of­fices across Bei­jing, Shang­hai, Nan­jing, Guangzhou, Prince­ton and Boston — has priced its float at the top of the range (HK$8.95), mark­ing the first ma­jor IPO to pro­ceed in Hong Kong since the stock mar­ket re­opened af­ter the Lu­nar New Year hol­i­day amid coro­n­avirus fears. Most of the new cash will go to­ward its lead drug, a BTK in­hibitor dubbed ore­labru­ti­nib; the rest will fund de­vel­op­ment of oth­er can­cer and au­toim­mune drugs.

The co-owner of a Florida-based clinical research site pleaded guilty to lying to an FDA investigator during a 2017 inspection, revealing that she falsely portrayed part of a GlaxoSmithKline pediatric asthma study as legitimate, when in fact she knew that certain data had been falsified, the Department of Justice said Wednesday.

Three other employees — Yvelice Villaman Bencosme, Lisett Raventos and Maytee Lledo — previously pleaded guilty and were sentenced in connection with falsifying data associated with the trial at the CRO Unlimited Medical Research.

New research shows how generic drug companies can successfully market a limited number of approved indications for a brand name drug, prior to coming to market for all of the indications. But several recent court decisions have created a layer of uncertainty around these so-called “skinny” labels.

While courts have generally allowed generic manufacturers to use their statutorily permitted skinny-label approvals, last summer, a federal circuit court found that Teva Pharmaceuticals was liable for inducing prescribers and patients to infringe GlaxoSmithKline’s patents through advertising and marketing practices that suggested Teva’s generic, with its skinny label, could be employed for the patented uses.