Bryce Lapping

North Carolina has received a grade of C+ in an annual survey of small business owners released Tuesday. The 2017 United States Small Business Survey, which is taken annually by Thumbtack, a site connecting consumers with services. The study, which is the largest of its kind – according to the site – surveys more than 13,000 small business owners in 80 cities and 50 states, measuring a variety of factors, including tax, labor and licensing regulations. “The small business owners we heard from in North Carolina were 2 percent less positive about their state’s support for small businesses than...

A Durham-based pharmaceutical company saw its stock drop by more than 12 percent Monday after it announced positive results from a study done on a drug treating ototoxicity, or chemotherapy-induced hearing loss. Fennec Pharmaceuticals Inc. opened Monday at $12.04 but dropped as low as $9.99 — its lowest mark since moving its stock to the NASDAQ in September — before closing at $10.59. On Friday, Fennec concluded the third phase of a study of PEDMARK, the company’s drug for pediatric cancer patients. It found the drug reduced platinum chemotherapeutic ototoxicity, or platinum chemotherapy-induced hearing loss, of pediatric cancer patients,...

Three UNC-Chapel Hill professors from the Eshelman School of Pharmacy received a patent for a new compound to treat childhood leukemia and other forms of cancer, according to a filing Tuesday with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Xiaodong Wang, Stephen Frye and Dmitri Kireev, along with three other individuals, filed for the patent in late February 2016. According to the patent application, acute lymphoblastic leukemia is the most common malignancy in children, and common varieties are cured by chemotherapy in 75 percent to 85 percent of the cases. However, resistance to and relapse from therapy is a major...