GW Pharmaceuticals plc, of Porton Down, UK, received commercial approval for lead cannabinoid product Sativex in Italy for moderate to severe spasticity in multiple sclerosis patients who have not responded adequately to other anti-spasticity medications...In other news, closed its initial public offering (IPO) of 3.5 million American depository shares (ADSs) at $8.90 per share...PM01183 is designed to bind covalently to the minor groove of DNA to induce a specific degradation in tumor cells of RNA

Even after the news broke Monday – and the Theravance share price (NASDAQ:THRX) gained more than 14 percent to hit $40 – the entire company was still only valued at $3.94 billion...Editor's note: To obtain a CD of the webinar, "Royalty Financing for Biotech and Medical Device Companies: How to Determine Eligibility and Take Advantage of this Unique Financing Opportunity" or for a deeper dive, BioWorld's Biopharmaceutical Royalty Rates Analysis: Essential Benchmarks for Dealmaking, call 800-477-6307

He allegedly permitted a trader, dubbed John Doe in the affidavit, to purchase 20,000 shares of an initial public offering of stock for GeneMedicine Inc., of The Woodlands, Texas, in exchange for which John Doe agreed to purchase 5,000 shares of stock issued by two other companies, Hemisphere and Ecogen Inc...Public Information Officer Marvin Smilon, of the U.S. Attorney's Office, told BioWorld Today that a hearing is set for May 14 before Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy, in Manhattan District Court

In other news, Addex said dipraglurant demonstrated dose-dependent mGlu5 receptor occupancy in a nonhuman primate positron emission tomography study, showing the correlation between the plasma concentration of dipraglurant and occupancy of dipraglurant on mGlu5 receptors in the brain...The goal is to validate emerging epigenetic targets for oncology indications and to demonstrate the eligibility of selected target families for drug formalations

to sell shares of common stock 4/19/13 Navidea Biopharma-ceuticals Inc. (Dublin, Ohio) At-the-market common stock offering 2.1S $5.1 Navidea raised $5.1M in an offering of 2.1M shares at $2.43 per share...StemCells issued SVB a warrant to purchase 293,531 shares of common stock at $1.7034 per share 4/10/13 Unigene Laboratories Inc. (Boonton, N.J.) Amended financing agreement N/A $0.75 Unigene entered a second amendment to a financing agreement with affiliates of Victory Park Capital Advisors LLC

Addex Therapeutics SA, of Geneva, said regulatory authorities in the Netherlands gave approval to start in the first half of this year a Phase I study of ADX71441, a GABA-B receptor positive allosteric modulator, for Charcot-Marie-Tooth1A (CMT1A) neuropathy and other disease indications...for the Brisbane, Australia-based company's Diversity Scanning Array (DSA) and Versatile Assembly on Stable Templates (VAST) technologies in a deal worth up to $240 million in milestones, plus other payments

In separate news, another Galapagos unit, Argenta, inked a deal with Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, of Ingelheim, Germany, to apply its respiratory drug discovery services to an undisclosed target within Boehringer's respiratory disease portfolio...In other news, BioInvent said the first patient has been treated in a Phase II study of BI-505 for smoldering multiple myeloma, or asymptomatic myeloma

However, there was some promising news to help give the sector a lift going into that meeting...According to Credit Suisse analyst Ravi Mehrotra writing in a research note, "We do not think that we are in a 'biotech bubble,' given that the drivers of the biotech sector's YTD performance are very different from those in '99/'00...Editor's Note: The BioWorld editorial team will be providing comprehensive coverage of BIO 2013 in the daily issues of BioWorld Today.

to begin a Phase IIa trial of BL-8040, a selective antagonist of chemokine receptor CXCR4, in acute myeloid leukemia (AML...According to the terms, Shasun will be able to use the Debiopharm technology to manufacture synthetic Huperzine-A under GMP quality conditions and commercialize it in pharmaceutical and nutraceutical markets...In other news, GSK experienced manufacturing delays for manufacture and supply of Horizant (gabapentin enacarbil), partnered with XenoPort Inc., of Santa Clara, Calif

In other news, Prana reported that it received a A$2.5 million (US$2.6 million) cash refund under the R&D Tax Incentive Program...The refund was received to support research and clinical development of PBT2 for Huntington's and Alzheimer's diseases, as well as for other Prana research activities into Parkinson's disease and other neurological indications

In other news, GSK recently agreed to a nonexclusive material transfer, patent and know-how license deal with the Health Protection Agency (HPA) for the development and manufacture of a next-generation polio vaccine...Terms include certain milestones and tiered royalty payments to the HPA in return for technology transfer and other licensing rights

In separate news, Astellas signed a deal to access the TSUBAME2.0 supercomputer at the Tokyo Institute of Technology to discover candidates for NTDs caused by dengue virus...In other news, The Nasdaq OMX Stockholm's listing committee approved the listing of NeuroVive's shares

Sosei licensed Japanese rights to the compound from BioAlliance, which markets the product as Loramyc/Oravig...The studies are designed to allow PCT to evaluate the applicability of SistemQC technology in stem cell characterization employing Sistemic's miRNA profiling system and analytical approaches to product miRNA panels

India's Ministry of Health & Family Welfare is asking for comment from drug developers and other interested parties on the plan to establish two committees that would "formulate...In 2012, 253 of 480 applications were granted to conduct trials of new drugs or vaccines, compared to 283 (out of 306) granted the year before, according to figures from the health ministry obtained by india.com, a Mumbai-based news source...Editor's note: For a copy of BioWorld's new biosimilars report, The Biosimilars Game

The news was hardly unexpected, as the product was nodded through by the European Medicines Agency's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) in January...In order to acquire something interesting, it's going to be very expensive, and some people are afraid they'll have to pay too high a price...Those and other questions are likely to get a further airing in Brussels Tuesday

Clinigen Group plc, of Burton-on-Trent, UK, and Theravance Inc., of South San Francisco, entered an exclusive commercialization agreement in the European Union and certain other countries located in Europe for Vibativ (telavancin) in nosocomial pneumonia, including ventilator-associated pneumonia, known or suspected to be caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, when other alternatives are not suitable...In other news, Elan said its Tysabri (natalizumab) restructuring transaction is

Funds will be used to advance development programs across Bionomics' pipeline, including BNC375, Bionomics' drug candidate for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and other conditions where memory is significantly compromised and Bionomics' cancer stem cell directed drug candidate BNC101...In other news, Biotie and partner H. Lundbeck A/S, of Copenhagen, Denmark, said they received marketing authorization from the European Commission for Selincro (nalmefene), an opioid system modulator, for the

Details Date Amarantus BioScience Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) Convertible note financing N/A $1.4 Amarantus secured an additional $1.4M in financing commitments through an amendment of its initial $600,000 convertible note, issued in November 2012 to Dominion Capital, to $2M 2/1/13 BioLineRx Ltd. (Jerusalem) American depositary shares agreement 2.7ADS $8 BioLineRx agreed with OrbiMed Israel Partners Ltd...The date indicated refers to the BioWorld Today issue in which the news item can be found

To date, 150 patients out of a total of 200 patients have already been recruited in 16 centers in Germany, Austria and Israel...The goal is to modulate the half-life of the therapy to increase efficacy of treatment...The company intends to start clinical trials in the third quarter