Clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company Urovant Sciences Ltd. appointed Sef Kurstjens and Pierre Legault to its board of directors, increasing the number of members from three to five (see related story on page 1).
Kurstjens came from Astellas Pharma Inc. (TYO: 4503), where he served as chief medical officer, president and chief executive at affiliate Agensys Inc. in Santa Monica. Prior to joining the Japanese pharmaceutical company formed in 2005 from the merger of Yamanouchi Pharmaceutical Co. and Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Co., Kurstjens was chief medical officer and head of global drug development for urology, neurology, ophthalmology and dermatology at Allergan PLC, which has sizable Irvine operations.
Legault serves as board chairman of Artios Pharma Ltd. and Poxel SA and is on the board of Syndax Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Clementia Pharmaceuticals Inc. He also came from Astellas Pharma, where he served as chief executive of subsidiary Prosidion Ltd., which went out of business in 2012.
The Business Journal reported on Urovant going public last week, seeking $150 million to support research and development. It’s USA headquarters are in Irvine at UCI Research Park. It will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker UROV. The S-1 filing with the SEC gave no indication of price or timing. J.P. Morgan is the lead underwriter.
Urovant develops therapies for urologic conditions. Its lead therapeutic candidate vibegron, an oral drug designed to treat overactive bladder, is in the process of a third-phase clinical trial.
The company also plans to evaluate vibegron for two additional indications: treatment of overactive bladder in men with benign prostatic hyperplasia, or age-related prostate gland enlargement that can cause urination difficulty, and pain associated with irritable bowel syndrome.
Urovant’s parent company is Basel, Switzerland-based Roviant Sciences Ltd. The global biopharmaceutical firm’s family of companies focuses on therapeutics, including women’s health, rare diseases, neurology, cardiometabolic diseases, dermatology and healthcare data.
Roviant has $1.1 billion in venture backing, led by SoftBank.
Biologics in Space
Irvine-based Cryoport Inc. (Nasdaq: CYRX), which provides temperature-controlled logistics for the life sciences industry, is taking transportation to the next level by launching biologics samples in space.
Samples the company transported were recently launched on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which took off from Cape Canaveral in Florida to the International Space Station. They’ll be used in two experiments designed to answer how human cells adapt to weightlessness, and how to limit disturbances in the immune and bone systems to allow longer stays in space.
The samples were transported in Cryoport containers, which keep them below minus 150 C to suspend metabolic activity. The company said that shipping biological samples at low temperatures maintains cell structural integrity and functionality.
Chief Executive Jerrell Shelton said advances in cellular and gene technologies have increased demand for temperature-controlled logistics.
Shares of the company currently trade at $15 each for a $416 million market cap.
SpaceX is scheduled to return to Earth late this month, and Cryoport will transport the biological samples from Kennedy Space Center to the University of Zurich.
Bits & Pieces
ReShape Lifesciences Inc. (Nasdaq: RSLS) announced it successfully implanted the first Reshape Balloon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. The Food and Drug Administration-approved implant, comprised of two connected saline-filled gastric balloons, is designed to take up space in the stomach so that there’s less space for food. The San Clemente-based device company develops minimally invasive devices to treat obesity and metabolic diseases. Irvine-based Sabra Health Care REIT Inc. (Nasdaq: SBRA) recently sold nine facilities leased to Genesis Healthcare Inc. (NYSE: GEN). The seven skilled nursing facilities, one senior housing community and one continuing care retirement community brought $81.4 million. The senior housing-focused real estate investment trust also sold a skilled nursing facility leased to Signature HealthCare LLC for $7 million. It said it plans to use proceeds from the sales to repay debt … Palo Alto-based Science Exchange Inc., an online marketplace that outsources research and development services, appointed Allergan plc Chief R&D Officer David Nicholson to its board of directors, bringing the total number to six members. Nicholson is based at the pharmaceutical company’s Irvine office. Investors of Science Exchange include Palo-Alto-based Norwest Venture Partners, Israeli investment firm Maverick Ventures, New York-based Union Square Ventures, San Francisco-based Index Ventures and YCombinator.
