Natalie Missakian

While working at a Massachusetts hospital system a decade ago, Lisa Trumble encountered a patient who had visited the emergency room 400 times in just six months. Homeless and addicted […]

When state regulators approved Connecticut’s two most recent hospital mergers and acquisitions, both deals came with major strings attached.

In the top right corner of his Zoom background, Eran Amir displays a photo of his daughter Ariel at three months old. It’s her first Halloween and she’s dressed as a grandma, oversized black-rimmed glasses perched on her nose and a cotton-ball wig covering her tiny head. Cuteness aside, the photo is a reminder of why Amir, 45, left a 20-year career in financial technology and product management to launch GoStork, which aims to become the Amazon of the fertility industry.

Biohaven Pharmaceuticals will seek FDA approval of a new fast-acting nasal spray for migraine, after the drug soared through a Phase 3 clinical trial. The drug, zavegepant, is a follow-up to Biohaven’s migraine pill Nurtec ODT, which won FDA approval in 2020. Like Nurtec, it’s part of a new class of migraine treatments that target the brain chemical CGRP (calcitonin gene-related peptide).   If approved, zavegepant would become the first CGRP nasal spray for acute migraine treatment on the market. 

Pharma giant Pfizer has struck another major deal with a New Haven bioscience company. This time the pharma company is betting on Biohaven Pharmaceuticals and its migraine drug Nurtec ODT, also known as rimegepant, agreeing to pay $500 million upfront for the rights to commercialize the drug outside the U.S. 

At the start of the pandemic, serial entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg and one of his Guilford companies set out to develop a rapid home test for COVID-19 that could rival the accuracy of a standard lab test. That over-the-counter test, called Detect, is now about to hit the market. 

New Haven medtech Biorez said it has won four new patents for its BioBrace implant, a tissue scaffold that aims to speed healing in knee and rotator cuff surgeries. The patents protect the device’s use in surgery into 2040. The device now has 8 U.S. patents and 16 outside of the U.S., the company said. 

An Israeli biotech with a Branford location reported disappointing results in a Phase 2 cosmetic trial for a topical gel that uses a cocktail of naturally occurring organisms to destroy acne-causing bacteria on the skin. BiomX said the good news was the study found its anti-acne gel BX001 was safe and well-tolerated and produced a statistically significant improvement in the appearance of acne-prone skin. 

Biohaven Pharmaceuticals gave an early report this week on its clinical trial of a drug to treat the rare brain disease Muscular System Atrophy, and the news wasn’t good. The drug, verdiperstat, failed to slow progression of the disease when compared to a placebo, Biohaven said. It also fell short on its secondary goals, which included improvement on measures of quality of life.

A five-year-old Yale program that has helped dozens of drug and medical device companies get their ideas off the ground is now looking to help birth more university spinouts in a new field — digital health and health care IT.  The Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale said it is setting aside “a significant portion” of the $2.6 million it plans to award in 2021-2022 for new projects in those areas.

Two months into its takeover of New Haven-born Alexion Pharmaceuticals, drug giant AstraZeneca is growing the biotech’s drug pipeline, agreeing to pay up to $500 million for New Jersey-based Caelum Biosciences and its lead rare disease drug. Under the deal, Alexion will pay Caelum $150 million up front and potentially another $350 million if the drug meets certain milestones. Alexion, which now operates as AZ’s rare disease unit, acquired a small stake in Caelum, with an option to buy it, in 2019. AstraZeneca had until January to exercise the option. 

Coronavirus vaccine maker Moderna is giving away one of its mRNA-based treatments to a newly launched Stamford nonprofit — with the goal of developing a free treatment for people with an ultra-rare disease. Moderna and the new Stamford-based Institute for Life Changing Medicines (ICLM) announced on Tuesday they would collaborate on a new mRNA-based therapeutic for Crigler-Najjar Syndrome Type 1 (CN-1). 

A pocket-sized ultrasound device invented in Guilford will once again be hitching a ride into space — this time as part of the much-publicized Inspiration4 flight, the first all-civilian space trip into orbit. Researchers for NASA want to see if the average person can use Butterfly Network’s handheld ultrasound device to scan their own bodies and interpret the results without help from a medical professional.

Jon Soderstrom has spent the last quarter-century waiting for Greater New Haven’s bioscience industry to catch up with his vision. Since being recruited to lead Yale’s Office of Cooperative Research in 1996, Soderstrom has played a leading role in building an ecosystem that he hoped would one day put New Haven on the map as a nationally recognized biotech hub. It appears to him that moment is about to arrive. Consider the evidence, he said, ticking off a list of recent headlines. • A $93 million IPO for rare disease biotech Rallybio.

A study at Yale University has found that a portable MRI made by a Guilford company can identify bleeding in the brain associated with strokes. Stroke patients can be given clot-busting drugs that can improve outcomes, but there’s a small window of time for successful intervention, and the medicine isn’t safe for patients with bleeding in the brain.   The American Heart Association’s guidelines for stroke management recommend that all patients receive rapid brain imaging when they arrive at the hospital, to rule out a bleed. 

The Meriden Markham Airport is closed until October 21 as it undergoes a $1.8 million runway and taxiway overhaul. Work on the federally funded project began Aug. 23 and is expected to take around two months, Constance Castillo, the airport’s manager, said in a phone interview. Tilcon Connecticut Inc. won the contract for the project, which involves reconstructing the 3,100-by-75-foot runway, repaving the taxiway, and installing new LED lighting and signage. The airport is also getting new drainage around the runway and new reflective runway markings, Castillo said.

A New Haven-area medical device startup said it has raised $27 million to advance its technology to treat heart failure patients. Yale spinout CoRISMA MCS Systems Inc. (formerly Bonde Innovations LLC) announced the closing of the Series A funding round on Monday.  China Grand Pharmaceutical and Health Care Holdings Ltd., known as Grand Pharma, led the round and is taking a 22.2% equity interest stake in the company in exchange for broad commercial rights to the Greater China market, according to an announcement.

A drug that New Haven-born Alexion Pharmaceuticals acquired in an $855 million buyout of a Swedish biopharma three years ago could pay dividends for new Alexion parent AstraZeneca. The UK-based pharma giant, which acquired the drug, ALXN1840, as part of its $39 billion Alexion takeover last month, said the experimental treatment aced a late-stage trial for patients with Wilson disease.

  If you’re a Connecticut scientist, research student, doctor or engineer looking to launch a new venture in the life sciences, a state-backed bioscience accelerator program wants to hear from you. The Accelerator for Biosciences in Connecticut (ABCT) has begun taking applications for its 2022 cohort. The deadline to apply is Oct. 25. The six-month, competitive program aims to provide entrepreneurship education and help seed-stage ventures secure funding and build industry contacts.

Drug giant AstraZeneca is pulling the plug on a late-stage clinical trial of Alexion’s drug Ultomiris in patients diagnosed with the deadly neuromuscular disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. An independent monitoring committee recommended stopping the trial after an interim review found Ultomiris lacked efficacy against the disease, the UK-based drug giant said in an update Friday.