• Aureon Laboratories Inc., of Yonkers, N.Y., promoted Robert Shovlin to president and CEO. Shovlin, who joined Aureon in June 2005, most recently served as the company's president and chief operating officer. Former CEO Vijay Aggarwal will step down, though he will remain a member of the board.

• Bavarian Nordic AS, of Kvistgaard, Denmark, said it is in negotiations with the U.S. government to develop a freeze-dried version of its small pox vaccine, Imvamune.

• Cellceutix Corp., of Beverly, Mass., acquired rights to the compound KM 732, a small molecule developed in a company-affiliated laboratory in Pune, India. The compound, which demonstrated a significant decrease in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure in test animals vs. controls, now will be synthesized in the U.S. Cellceutix plans to conduct proof-of-concept studies in large animals to evaluate the compound's potential for use in hypertensive emergency.

• CytRx Corp., of Los Angeles, reported preclinical data indicating that arimoclomol offers significant neuroprotective and neuroregenerative effects in stroke. In animals treated six or 10 hours after stroke, arimoclomol increased the number of cells expressing HSP70, reduced apoptosis and increased neuronal development. Arimoclomol is a molecular chaperone amplifier designed to reduce the accumulation of damaged proteins.

• GenVec Inc., of Gaithersburg, Md., received a Phase II Small Business Innovation and Research grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to support development of its vector production technology. Funds from the grant, valued at about $2.5 million over three years, will be used to develop cell lines capable of producing vaccine vectors based on different human serotype groups and encoding inhibitory antigens.

• Horizon Discovery Ltd., of Cambridge, UK, signed a commercial agreement relating to its X-MAN technology with Silicos NV, of Diepenbeek, Belgium, a computational fragment-based drug discovery firm. The deal covers the testing of a number of Silicos lead compounds on human isogenic cell lines comprising specific genotypes targeted by the compound series and is aimed at allowing Silicos to gather information relating to the selectivity and mode of action of their compounds using model in vitro systems. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Karo Bio AB, of Stockholm, Sweden, said Wyeth, of Madison, N.J., will take on all future search and development activities under the company's drug discovery collaboration, effective Sept. 1. The companies have been working together since 2001, and the collaboration has aimed at identifying and selecting for further development inflammatory disease candidates that focus on the liver X receptor. (See BioWorld Today, Sept. 5, 2001.)

• NexBio Inc., of San Diego, said preclinical data showed that DAS181 (Fludase) strongly inhibited N5N1 infection in human lung tissue and cells and also removed the two types of sialic acid receptors to which influenza virus binds to prevent both the virus' invasion into new cells and further replication where infection already exists. Results from the study, conducted in collaboration with the University of Hong Kong, were published in the September 2009 issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

• Profectus BioSciences Inc., of Baltimore, entered a research collaboration with the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative to conduct proof-of-concept studies with its recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus vector technology as a preventative malaria vaccine. Specific terms were not disclosed.

• Protalix BioTherapeutics Inc., of Carmiel, Israel, received fast-track designation for prGCD, its plant cell-expressed recombinant form of glucocerbrosidase to treat Gaucher's disease. The company expects to complete a Phase III trial in September, with top-line data available in October, and complete a new drug application filing before the end of this year.

• To-BBB Technologies BV, of Leiden, the Netherlands, is partnering with TTY Biopharm Co. Ltd., of Taipei, Taiwan, for the manufacturing of brain-targeted doxorubicin liposomes to be used for development of to-BBB's lead product for brain cancer. The doxorubicin liposomes are designed with tripeptide glutathione coats at the tips of polyethylene glycol to enhance delivery across the blood-brain barrier. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

• Tripep AB, of Stockholm, Sweden, and Cosmix AG, of Braunschweig, Germany, licensed their respective technologies (RAS and mRNA Display Library) to a newly formed U.S. company, Opsonic Therapeutics Inc. The RAS technology is based on oligosaccharide-linked peptides designed to redirect natural antibodies present in all humans to new targets, while the mRNA Display Library technology is used to identify peptides that bind to a selected target. In exchange for exclusive licenses to those technologies, Tripep and Cosmix each will retain a 20 percent ownership in Opsonic.