2017 is looking like a transition year for the biotech.

Seattle Genetics (NASDAQ:SGEN) released fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday and gave investors a taste of what's to come later this year. With modest growth for Adcetris, its only drug on the market, investors should be focused on Seattle Genetics' pipeline and clinical trials that could further expand sales of Adcetris.

Metric

Q4 2016

Q4 2015

Year-Over-Year Change

Revenue

$105 million

$93 million

12.6%

Income from operations

($55.8 million)

($25.1 million)

N/A

Earnings per share

($0.39)

($0.18)

N/A

Data source: Seattle Genetics.

Image source: Getty Images.

Clay Siegall, Seattle Genetics' president and CEO, asked investors to look past 2017 guidance and see the bigger picture: "What is really important with Adcetris is not the sales we have now. What's really important is going toward the big items of [ECHELON-1] and [ECHELON-2], and you can even include ALCANZA in there."

On the delay of submitting the application for CTCL patients, Siegall didn't even want to call it that. "To me it's not a delay. To me it's taking advantage of an opportunity," he said. "I think we have a really good opportunity to end up with a bigger market if we can get a bigger label."

Management guided for Adcetris sales of $280 million to $300 million this year, which is 5.3% to 12.9% higher than last year's sales. Royalty revenue is expected to be in the $50 million to $55 million range, down from the $67.5 million in 2016, but last year included a $20 million milestone payment.

The difference between the bottom and top of guidance likely has to do with how many doctors prescribe Adcetris for CTCL off-label ahead of the FDA approval. But capturing those patients now versus next year isn't particularly important for Seattle Genetics' long-term value.

Brian Orelli has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Seattle Genetics. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Dr. Orelli is a Senior Biotech Specialist. He has written about biotech, pharmaceutical, and medical device companies for The Motley Fool since 2007.

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Seattle Genetics Earnings: Waiting on ECHELON - Motley Fool

Shares of Sage Therapeutics ( SAGE) were up 8.6% ahead of the opening bell on Monday, trading at $51.50. The Cambridge, Mass. company unveiled encouraging top-line results from part A of its phase 2 study of SAGE-217 for the treatment of major depressive disorder. "Understanding the caveats associated with open-label data, we are highly encouraged by the strong signal we achieved in this study, which met our internal criteria for achieving a positive signal and thus supported our plan to proceed to the double-blind, placebo-controlled part of the Phase 2 trial," said Sage CEO Jeff Jonas in a statement.

Meanwhile, Immunomedics ( IMMU) shares rose 8% to $5.65 after finishing Friday's trading session at $5.23, up 21.6%. The Morris Plains, N.J. company on Friday announced a global licensing agreement with Seattle Genetics ( SGEN) for sacituzumab govitecan, Immunomedics' solid tumor therapy candidate.

Other biotech stock movers on Monday morning include molecular diagnostic company Myriad Genetics ( MYGN) , whose shares were up 6.2%, to $16.98.

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Biotech Premarket Movers: Sage Therapeutics, Immunomedics, Myriad Genetics - TheStreet.com

Scientists at the University of B.C.have built a better mouse one that is indifferent to cocaine.

Unlike normal mice, the genetically engineered rodents did not show addictive behaviour even after repeated injections of the narcotic over days, suggesting that habitual drug use in humans may be a matter of genetics.

While the finding is unlikely to yield a pill that cures addiction anytime soon, it could lead to a test that identifies who is at greatest risk of addiction and enable people to act on that knowledge, saidShernaz Bamji, the lead author of a study published today by the journal Nature Neuroscience.

The finding provides a biochemical model for addiction based onprevious work at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., that found people with genetic mutations associated with a class of proteins in the brain called cadherins are more prone to substance abuse.

Cadherin helps bind cells together and play a role inwhich brain circuits are strengthened during learning even learning that certain drugs deliver pleasure.

Although Bamji had theorized that higher levels of cadherin would lead to more addictive behaviour, the opposite turned out to be true.

To better understand its role, the researchers engineered mice to produce excessive cadherin proteins in their brains.

Bamji and her collaboratorsinjected normal and genetically engineered mice with cocaine and placed them in a distinctly decorated room within a multi-room cage. On alternating days the mice were placed in the other room and injected with saline, said co-author Andrea Globa.

After six days of alternating treatments, the mice wereallowed to move freely to any of the rooms in the cage.

The normal mice greatly preferred the cocaine-associated room, but the high-cadherin mice didnt much care for it, suggesting that the presence of extra cadherin had somehow interfered with the learned response to cocaine.

Normal mice always gravitate to the chamber where they received the drug, looking for that high, but the mutant mice didnt, said Bamji.

The answer to the mysterious result was found inside the membrane of brain cellsthemselves, where cadherin interfered with the ability of a specialized proteinreceptor to functionat the synapse, the point at which neurons communicatewith each other chemically toform memories.

Unable to strengthen the connection between synapses, the brains learning circuitry couldntretaincocaines pleasurable memory.

Addiction is a form of learning in the reward circuits of the brain, she said. Where you dont get synapse strengthening, you arent getting learning and you arent getting addiction.

However, because many synapsesin the brain use the same strategy to learn, a magic bullet or pill for addiction is a long way off.

Simply increasing cadherin would likely prevent (addicts)from learning anything new, she said. Thats not a very good trade-off.

Future research might uncover a protein or enzyme in the brainmore specific to addiction that functions only in the reward circuitry of the brain, which could be a target for medication.

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Cocaine addiction a matter of genetics, UBC researchers say - Calgary Herald

HERSHEY, Pa. Olivier Noel is only 28 years old, but hes already changing the face of genetics research.

The Haitian native is in his sixth year of Penn State College of MedicinesMD/PhD Medical Scientist Training Programand was recently recognized by Forbes as one of the countrys brightest young entrepreneurs on its30 Under 30 list in the science industry. Hes the founder of DNAsimple, a startup aimed at accelerating genetics research by connecting DNA donors with research scientists. The company provides scientists with access to critically important samples, significantly speeding up the pace for genetics research.

People dont realize it can take years to get samples, but really only a month to get an assignment done which is a little bit ridiculous, Noel said. Its a problem for geneticists across the board. You can have a million dollars to do a study, but waste three years trying to get samples.

Noel explained a light bulb went off when he attended a genetics conference at the recommendation of Dr. Roger L. Ladda, whom he had been shadowing with the intent of focusing his residency on genetics.

The keynote speaker at the conference was talking about how he was studying a disease not really prevalent in the Western world, and the way they were able to get a DNA sample to validate was through Facebook. The joke at the time was that Facebook is the new way of doing genetics. I realized, wow, that worked well for one case but thats not the way science should get done, Noel said.

Noels big break was when the company was accepted into the Y Combinator program, which includes such notable alumni as Dropbox, Airbnb and Reddit. DNAsimple was one of 32 companies accepted from more than 6,500 applicants worldwide, he said. But he credits his doctoral advisors former Penn State faculty member Dr. Glenn S. Gerhard and Penn State College of Medicine Chair of Biochemistry and Molecular BiologyJames Broach for teaching him about genetics and exposing him to the Penn State Institute for Personalized Medicine.

Learn more about Noel and his work in this Penn State Medicine article.

Last Updated February 13, 2017

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College of Medicine graduate student launches genetics research start-up - Penn State News

[W]hen the human genome was sequenced, scientists like [Joel Hirschhorn, a geneticist at Boston Childrens Hospital and the Broad Institute] thought they could plumb that data to track all the height genes.

That effort started slowly. But now, Hirschhorn says, For height there are about 700 variants known to affect height, each of them usually with a pretty small effect on height, usually like a millimeter or less.

Even so, the traits [Hirschhorn] found only explain about a quarter of the inherited height factors. And, frustratingly, for most of those variants scientists have no idea what they actually do.

Hirschhorn and his colleagues are expanding their already massive study of 700,000 subjects. That approach has drawn skepticism from some scientists, who think its a waste of effort.

David Goldstein, a professor of genetics at Columbia University, says an expanded effort could ultimately implicate every gene in existence, and that hardly helps scientists narrow down the biological factors that contribute to height.

Its likely scientists will never be able to figure out what these hundreds of common variants do to influence height, Goldstein says. Instead, a much better strategy is [to look] for rare variants that pack a big punch.

[The study can be found here.]

The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post:Genetics of Height is Way Complex, It Turns Out

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Genetics of height: It may be too complex for scientists to crack the code - Genetic Literacy Project

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Miragen Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: MGEN), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of microRNA-targeted therapies, today announced the completion of its merger with Signal Genetics, Inc. (Nasdaq: SGNL) , effective February 13, 2017. Concurrent with the closing of the merger, miRagen received gross proceeds of $40.7 million in new equity investment from a combination of current and new miRagen investors, including Fidelity Management and Research Company, Brace Pharma Capital, Atlas Venture, Boulder Ventures, JAFCO Co., Ltd., MP Healthcare Venture Management, MRL Ventures (a venture fund of Merck, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada), Remeditex Ventures, and others. Together with pre-merger cash on miRagens balance sheet, the combined company has approximately $60 million in cash and short-term investments.

Upon completion of the merger today, Signal was renamed Miragen Therapeutics, Inc. The combined company will commence trading on The NASDAQ Capital Market under the symbol MGEN on February 14, 2017.

The completion of this merger marks a significant step forward for miRagen, our investors and potentially thousands of patients awaiting a therapeutic option for their conditions, said miRagen President and CEO William S. Marshall, Ph.D. The equity investment aligns the companys cash resources with our plan to advance the first two clinical programs into additional trials and to develop a compelling pipeline of targeted product candidates, each focused on patient populations with few clinical options. We believe these transactions will help us create a more focused and well financed organization as we build an exciting enterprise, an innovative culture and value for current and future stockholders.

Following the completion of the financing and merger, the combined company has approximately 21.3 million shares of common stock outstanding.

miRagens stockholders, including those who invested in the concurrent financing, received common stock, representing approximately 95.2% of the outstanding shares. Signals stockholders retained approximately 4.8% of the combined company.

The combined company will operate under the leadership of Dr. Marshall, and the board of directors of the combined company is comprised of seven members: Bruce Booth, John Creecy, Thomas Hughes, Kevin Koch, Kyle Lefkoff, Joseph Turner and Dr. Marshall.

Wedbush PacGrow acted as placement agent for miRagen in the financing.

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miRagen Therapeutics (MGEN) Completes Merger with Signal Genetics (SGNL) - StreetInsider.com