• Achillion Pharmaceuticals Inc., of New Haven, Conn., received notice from Nasdaq that it has regained compliance with the listing rules. The company was notified in November that its stockholders' equity was below the minimum $10 million requirement.
• Ambrilia Biopharma Inc., of Montreal, said it has taken additional cost-cutting actions resulting in the closure of its manufacturing facility and a further reduction in cash consumption and headcount to preserve cash into 2010.
• Femta Pharmaceuticals Inc., of San Diego, entered a manufacturing services agreement with Lonza Group Ltd., of Basel, Switzerland, to facilitate the development and cGMP manufacturing of FM101, a high-affinity monoclonal antibody in late preclinical development for rheumatoid arthritis. The deal gives Femta access to Lonza's GS Gene Expression System, along with cell line, purification and process development.
• Genocea Biosciences Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., received a grant from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Sexually Transmitted Infections Cooperative Research Center for the development of vaccines against Chlamydia trachomatis. Last month, UMPC received $12.5 million from the National Institutes of Health to establish the STI center.
• Human Genome Sciences Inc., of Rockville, Md., said partner Novartis AG, of Basel, Switzerland, submitted a marketing authorization application for approval to market Joulferon (albinterferon alfa-2b) in Europe for chronic hepatitis C. HGS filed a biologics license application for the drug, known in the U.S. as Zalbin, last month. (See BioWorld Today, Nov. 30, 2009.)
• Life Technologies Corp., of Carlsbad, Calif., completed its acquisition of BioTrove Inc., of Woburn, Mass., for an undisclosed amount.
• Medicure Inc., of Winnipeg, Manitoba, said it reached agreement with the lender under its secured debt financing agreement dated Sept. 17, 2007, to a further deferral of required payments of about $2 million until Dec. 21. That agreement allows the company to continue its discussions with the lender regarding payment obligations and to explore additional restructuring and/or financing strategies. As of Aug. 31, Medicure had cash and equivalents of $938,467.
• Oxford BioMedica plc, of Oxford, UK, said StarGen, its gene-based therapy for Stargardt disease, received orphan designation from the European Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products. StarGen is designed to deliver a corrected version of the ABCA4 gene into the cells of the retina using the company's LentiVector technology and is partnered with Paris-based Sanofi-Aventis SA. Clinical development is expected to start in 2010.
• Pro-Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Newton, Mass., said the Brussels Branch of the Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research is testing the ability of Davanat to stop Galectin-3 from blocking the immune system's action on cancer cells. Research has shown that blocking the action of Galectin-3 improves the efficacy of T cells. Davanat, a carbohydrate polymer designed to target Galectin receptors that are overexpressed on cancer cells, is getting ready for Phase III development.
• Repligen Corp., of Waltham, Mass., said it received $731,000 in research funding to support the ongoing development of new treatments for Friedreich's ataxia from the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The grant will support the completion of preclinical GLP toxicology testing and GMP manufacture of a drug candidate for human trials.
• Rib-X Pharmaceuticals Inc., of New Haven, Conn., entered a collaborative research agreement with Massachusetts General Hospital for evaluation of the company's fluoroquinolone, delafloxacin, in an established animal model to determine resistance development and to validate the activity and mechanism of action of delafloxacin against microorganisms such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The compound is set to enter Phase III testing.