• Acorda Therapeutics Inc., of Hawthorne, N.Y., said that the wholesale acquisition cost for Ampyra (dalfampridine) extended-release tablets will be $1,056 per 30-day supply (60-count pill bottle), for an annual cost of $12,850. Ampyra was approved by the FDA Jan. 22 as a treatment to improve walking in patients with multiple sclerosis. Ampyra is expected to be available in March. The company said that patient assistance and co-pay programs will open as soon as Ampyra is commercially available. (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 25, 2010.)

• Advanced Cancer Therapeutics, of Louisville, Ky., signed a deal with the Department of Medicine at the University of Louisville's James Graham Brown Cancer Center to accelerate the identification of new clinical candidates for the prevention and treatment of cancer. Over the next 12 months, associate professor John Trent will provide contract work for ACT and interface with the company's medicinal chemists to identify the best preclinical candidates for ACT's top two small-molecule compound programs. Those programs include 6-phosphofructo-2-kinase/fructose-2,6-biphosphatase and choline kinase.

• Creative Antibiotics Sweden AB, of Umea, Sweden, has signed a material transfer agreement with the Université Catholique de Louvain in Brussels, Belgium, in which researchers will test the company's substances on the Pseudomonas bacterium. The bacterium is potentially lethal in patients with deep burns who develop wound infections. The work includes a detailed study of the potential general synergy between Creative Antibiotics' substances and antibiotics on a large number of clinically relevant isolates, several of which are resistant to antibiotics.

• EpiCept Corp., of Tarrytown, N.Y., said it was notified by Nasdaq that the firm has regained compliance with the minimum bid price requirement for listing.

• Health Discovery Corp., of Savannah, Ga., said it received the final payment due under an agreement that settled the company's patent infringement lawsuit against Vermillion Inc., of Fremont, Calif., formerly known as Ciphergen Biosystems Inc. In 2006, Health Discovery sued Ciphergen in federal district court alleging infringement of several of its patents covering the use of support vector machines for the discovery of biomarkers. The settlement agreement granted Vermillion a limited license to continue its use of the support vector machines technology only in conjunction with its protein based SELDI mass spectrometry technology.

• Labopharm Inc., of Laval, Quebec, said the FDA approved Oleptro (trazodone hydrochloride) extended-release tablets, a once-daily formulation of the antidepressant trazodone, to treat major depressive disorder in adults. Labopharm said it expected Oleptro to be available for prescription in the U.S. later this year.

• Pluristem Therapeutics Inc., of Haifa, Israel, said preclinical results, to be published in the Feb. 22, 2010, issue of the journal Brain Research, showed that animals treated with the firm's Placental Expanded Cell (PLX) therapy cells had improvement in sensory and motor deficits, a reduction in the development of the stroke lesion and an increase in the production of glial nerve tissue. The company noted that those effects occurred even though the PLX cells were administered eight and 24 hours after the inducement of the stroke, which Pluristem said suggested that the use of PLX cells in ischemic stroke may allow patients a longer window of time for successful treatment after the onset of the insult.

• Poniard Pharmaceuticals Inc., of South San Francisco, plans to reduce its work force by 57 percent, to 21 employees, and cut operating costs to focus resources on picoplatin development in solid tumors. Those cuts are expected to result in about $4 million in reduced annualized operating expenses in 2010. The company also expects to incur a $1 million charge in the first quarter related to the work force reduction. Coinciding with its restructuring, Poniard appointed Ronald A. Martell CEO. He succeeds Jerry McMahon, who will remain as nonexecutive chairman. Michael S. Perry was named president and chief medical officer. The changes at Poniard came a few months after the firm reported a failed Phase III study of picoplatin in lung cancer, though the company blamed an imbalance of third-line chemotherapy administered to patients in the treatment arm and has said it continues to seek a partnership for the drug. (See BioWorld Today, Nov. 17, 2009, and Jan. 26, 2010.)

• United Therapeutics Corp., of Silver Spring, Md., said its Lung Rx subsidiary finalized a strategic partnership with MondoBiotech AG, of Basel, Switzerland, following a Phase II study showing that inhaled Aviptadil demonstrated signals of long-term efficacy over existing therapies in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension. The agreement covers Aviptadil's development in a number of indications, including PAH, sarcoidosis, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and acute respiratory distress syndrome. Financial terms were not disclosed.