• Anesiva Inc., of South San Francisco, said its stockholders approved the merger with Arcion Therapeutics Inc., of Baltimore, and also approved a one-for-40 reverse stock split, which will be effected upon the close of the merger. Closure of the merger remains contingent upon Anesiva achieving multiple other closing conditions, including settling total outstanding trade payables at $3.5 million or less and resolution on all of its on-going litigation. The merger agreement requires that all of the conditions be achieved by Dec. 31. Also, Anesiva received a letter from Nasdaq stating that it failed to maintain a minimum market value of $5 million and was not in compliance with a listing rule. The company has until March 2, 2010, to regain compliance.

• BHR Pharma LLC, of Herndon, Va., has filed an investigational new drug application with the FDA for its BHR-100 intravenous progesterone infusion product. The company plans to initiate a global, Phase III, pivotal trial in early 2010 to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of BHR-100 as a neuroprotective agent for treating severe traumatic brain injury patients.

• BioSante Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Lincolnshire, Ill., has monetized a portion of its Elestrin (estradiol gel) royalty stream for $1 million, through a royalty buydown, with the possibility of receiving an additional $2.2 million in further buydowns within 75 days. The royalty stream was sold to Azur Pharma Ltd., of Dublin, Ireland, its Elestrin licensee in the U.S. BioSante maintained the right to receive up to $140 million in sales-based milestone payments if Elestrin reaches certain predefined sales per calendar year. The transaction affects Elestrin royalties in the U.S. only.

• California Stem Cell Inc., of Irvine, Calif., and Families of Spinal Muscular Atrophy said the FDA granted orphan drug designation to Motorgraft, a stem cell-derived motor neuron product, for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy. Preclinical safety and efficacy studies have demonstrated safety and functional benefit in several animal models. There are no currently approved therapies for the treatment of SMA. CSC recently completed a formal pre-IND meeting with the FDA to discuss the clinical and regulatory pathway for submission of an application to initiate human trials using the therapy for the treatment of SMA Type I. The company expects to file an IND to begin a Phase I safety study in 2010.

• Cell Therapeutics Inc., of Seattle, said an abstract to be published online in the journal Blood showed significant reduction in cardiac cell toxicity with pixantrone compared to currently marketed anthracyclines. The authors concluded that the reduction is due to pixantrone's inability to generate toxic drug iron complexes and reduced propensity to generate oxygen free radicals.

• EnVivo Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Watertown, Mass., reported the successful reduction in the levels of aggregated Abeta, or beta-amyloid in an aged transgenic model (Tg2576) of Alzheimer's disease with its lead gamma-secretase modulator EVP-0962. The study results were obtained as part of a collaborative effort with Amorfix Life Sciences, of Toronto, using its A4 Assay for the quantitative detection of aggregated Abeta. The data independently confirmed previously reported results by EnVivo that demonstrated potent Abeta42 lowering and concomitant positive effects on cognition in the Tg2576 model.

• Facet Biotech Corp., of Redwood City, Calif., presented data showing the ability of its protein engineering technologies to create improved first-generation antibodies and next-generation therapeutics. The company applied its PxP technology to rapidly measure more than 1,000 binding site mutants for four commercial antibodies: bevacizumab (Avastin), cetuximab (Erbitux), adalimumab (Humira) and omalizumab (Xolair). The data were presented at the IBC Antibody Engineering and Therapeutics Conference in San Diego.

• Rib-X Pharmaceuticals Inc., of New Haven, Conn., entered a license agreement with Yale University in the area of ribosome and antibiotic structure and function. Under the agreement, Rib-X will explore the high-resolution crystal structure of new ribosome technology elucidated at Yale.

• Sirius Genomics Inc., of Vancouver, British Columbia, appointed Chris Wagner president and CEO, replacing Brad Popovich, who will continue as a board member. Wagner was vice president of business development at Sirius Genomics and was previously with Aspreva Pharmaceuticals and Eli Lilly and Co.

• Sirona Biochem Corp., of Vancouver, British Columbia, said it has an improved chemical process that will enable the company to fast track lead optimization and preclinical development of its sodium-glucose linked transporter platform. The company has a target to be at the proof-of-concept stage in the first quarter of 2010, when it hopes to demonstrate the robustness of the molecule through in vivo testing.

• Tranzyme Pharma, of Research Triangle Park, N.C., is receiving $10 million up front in a collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., of New York, to discover and develop novel macrocyclic compounds against multi-BMS targets in different therapeutic areas. Tranzyme also will receive $3 million to $6 million in research fees over the initial two-year term of the agreement plus development and regulatory milestones as well as sales royalties. The company will be primarily responsible for early lead discovery, with BMS taking on much of the lead optimization activities and all preclinical product development and commercialization. The deal will focus on the use of Tranzyme's MATCH (macrocyclic template chemistry) for the discovery of bioactive macrocyclic drugs.

• Viral Genetics, of San Marino, Calif., entered an exclusive license agreement with the University of Colorado to develop cancer therapies. This new line of research into a means of killing drug-resistant cancer cells will be pursued by scientists at MetaCytolytics Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Viral Genetics. The process involved is metabolic disruption technology (MDT) that blocks invasive cells' ability to generate energy from sugars or fatty acids, in essence, starving cancer cells. MDT is expected to be combined with traditional chemotherapy and radiation treatments.