The goal is to identify a macro-filaricidal drug candidate that is capable of killing adult worms...KGaA, of Bad Homburg, Germany, to create renal pharmaceutical company Vifor-Fresenius Medical Care Renal Pharma Ltd...OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc., of Melville, N.Y., a wholly owned subsidiary of Astellas U.S. Holding Inc., a holding company owned by Astellas Pharma Inc., of Tokyo, and AVEO Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., announced that OSI has exercised its option under the parties' July 2009

Apeiron also plans to explore additional systemic routes of administration for SOD...The board agreed to keep the offer confidential until it can be reviewed...Spencer is a recently formed drug delivery company working in the metabolic disease space

to develop central nervous disease treatments for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases using Spencer's drug delivery platform

In other news, Intercell said results from a Phase II trial testing nosocomial vaccine candidate (IC43) against Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections met the primary endpoint, with all vaccine groups showing good seroconversion rates (65 percent to 81 percent) with IgG antibody geometric mean titers...To-BBB's G-Technology enhances drug delivery to the brain

CPEX Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Exeter, N.H., said its board is continuing its review of strategic alternatives, which includes a potential sale, merger or other business combination of CPEX with a third party or a monetization of the company's assets, including its rights to receive royalties and milestone payments...Ligon Discovery Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., partnered with Berlin-based Bayer Schering Pharma AG to apply its small-molecule microarray screening platform to discover candidates for new

Prior to this conversion, 3SBio owned no common shares of Isotechnika...Ascendis Pharma A/S, of Copenhagen, Denmark, initiated a Phase II European trial of ACP-001 , its once-weekly human growth hormone prodrug...Hybrigenics plans to proceed to a clinical efficacy Phase IIb study in the same therapeutic indication

The company said it intended to cooperate with the investigation...Amgen Inc., of Thousand Oaks, Calif., will face an FDA Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee review of its Phase III TREAT study, in which Aranesp (darbepoetin alfa) failed to significantly reduce heart attacks and other cardiovascular events or delay renal replacement therapy in anemic chronic kidney disease patients with Type II diabetes...Harbor said it does not intend to appeal the delisting determination and

Isotechnika Pharma Inc., of Edmonton, Alberta, and 3SBio Inc., of Shenyang, China, signed a development and commercialization agreement for voclosporin, a calcineurin inhibitor in development for prevention of organ rejection and treating autoimmune diseases...Vyteris Inc., of Fair Lawn, N.J., gained an option to exclusively license rights to thermal ablation and microdevice fabrication technologies for transdermal drug delivery from the Georgia Tech Research Corp., the tech transfer arm for the

NextWave Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cupertino, Calif., partnered with Tris Pharma Inc., of Monmouth Junction, N.J., to apply Tris' drug delivery technology to Next Wave's central nervous system (CNS) portfolio, and to develop another three CNS products

Acceleron Pharma Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., received FDA fast-track designation for ACE-031 to treat Duchenne's muscular dystrophy...This news comes just a few weeks after the company reported that activist shareholder Ramius Value and Opportunity Advisors LLC said that it is seeking to take over Cypress Bioscience, offering to buy the rest of the company shares that it does not already own for $4 per share. (See BioWorld Today, July 20, 2010

MiddleBrook Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Westlake, Texas, completed the sale of substantially all of its assets to Victory Pharma Inc., of San Diego, for about $17.3 million in cash plus the assumption of certain trade sales and other product-related liabilities...Through the acquisition, Victory Pharma has expanded its product portfolio with the addition of anti-infective products Moxatag and Keflex as well as the Pulsys drug delivery technology platform

The collaboration could potentially secure an independent supply of vaccines for Singapore and other countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to protect against seasonal influenza and future pandemics and extends Cytos' R&D pipeline...The collaboration is designed to develop siRNA drugs using RNAi technologies and novel structures by Quark Pharmaceutical Inc., of Fremont Calif., and Nitto Denko's drug delivery technologies for novel therapeutic concepts

If any products advance to the clinic Otsuka will take a separate license from GW and will fund development and commercialization...OctoPlus will develop, up to in vivo feasibility, a controlled-release formulation of an undisclosed compound using its proprietary drug delivery technology PolyActive

OctoPlus will develop, up to in vivo feasibility, a controlled-release formulation of an undisclosed compound using its proprietary drug delivery technology PolyActive...Ltd., of Taiwan, to commercialize Convivia, Raptor's proprietary oral formulation of 4-methylpyrazole, in Taiwan

In other news Benitec said data published in Cancer Research showed that the BIII-tubulin protein has a key role in the pathobiology and aggressiveness of human lung cancer by influencing drug sensitivity, tumor incidence and progression...Oxford BioMedica, of Oxford, UK, signed an amendment to its licence agreement with Cancer Research Technology Ltd., covering the use and exploitation of the 5T4 antigen used in TroVax, Oxford BioMedica's cancer vaccine, and other products...Sosei Group Corp., of

Mylotarg was granted accelerated approved in May 2000 to treat patients 60 years and older with recurrent AML who were not considered candidates for other chemotherapy...Saladax received exclusive global rights to commercialize the assays it develops, but financial terms were not disclosed...Sosei Group Corp., of Tokyo, acquired privately held nanoparticle drug delivery firm Activus Pharma Ltd., of Chiba, Japan

Action Pharma AS, of Holte, Denmark ,has completed an internal financing round of...Astellas Pharma Inc., of Tokyo, completed its initial tender offer for outstanding shares of Melville, N.Y.-based OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc...The new joint venture, dubbed Entera Bio Ltd., will use Oramed's oral drug delivery technology to develop an oral treatment for osteoporosis

BioAlliance Pharma SA, of Paris, has presented efficacy, safety and biodistribution results on its new biotherapy AMEP for advanced and metastatic melanoma...The merger would add sales and marketing infrastructures to CrystalGenomics' drug discovery and development capabilities...The funds enable Senexis to initiate that planned development and file two further patents for that next generation of potentially disease-modifying Alzheimer's drugs

In other news, Pronota has applied next-generation sequencing to aptamers to create a biomarker discovery and diagnostics platform...In other news, Rosetta Genomics Ltd., of Rehovot, Israel, reported results of a joint study with the NYU Langone Medical Center demonstrating the potential of miR-31 to be used for the development of therapies against mesothelioma and other cancers