• Affymetrix Inc., of Santa Clara, Calif., said that its GeneChip genotyping technology played a part in the recently announced discoveries of six new genes associated with susceptibility to heart attacks. Scientists from the University of Lübeck, Germany, and Massachusetts General Hospital conducted three separate studies, and all were published in Nature Genetics.

• Capstone Therapeutics (formerly OrthoLogic Corp.), of Tempe, Ariz., reported published results from the second data group of a preclinical study demonstrating that Chrysalin (rusalatide acetate or TP508), administered following the onset of ischemia, showed a statistically significant cardioprotective benefit in an elevated-cholesterol porcine model of acute myocardial infarction. The results from the elevated-cholesterol group are published online in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

• Immtech Pharmaceuticals Inc., of New York, is reorganizing its research and development operations to direct resources to business opportunities to its discovery program and library of compounds. The company also said the position of senior vice president for pharmaceutical development and chief medical officer is being eliminated.

• InteRNA Technologies BV, of Bilthoven, the Netherlands, and Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, also of the Netherlands, have entered into a research agreement to develop microRNA-based therapeutics for prostate cancer. Under the collaboration, InteRNA's lentiviral-based miRNA overexpression library will be applied in multiparametric, high-throughput functional screening assays to identify the biological role of individual miRNAs and novel therapeutic targets in prostate cancer.

• NovaBay Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Emeryville, Calif., entered an exclusive agreement with Markus Nagl and Waldemar Gottardi, professors at the Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria. NovaBay will fund ongoing research and will have access to past and future data generated in human clinical trials. In addition to the research agreement, NovaBay obtained an exclusive license to a broad portfolio of intellectual property covering uses of NCT compounds.