• Advanced Life Sciences Holdings Inc., of Chicago, disclosed positive results from an in vitro study assessing the efficacy of Restanza (cethromycin), its novel oral antibiotic, against 30 strains of Burkholderia pseudomallei, a serious, life-threatening bacterial pathogen. Restanza showed significant in vitro activity against clinical and environmental strains of B. pseudomallei as measured by minimal inhibitory concentration.

• AVI BioPharma Inc., of Bothell, Wash., reached an agreement with a shareholder group that led to the appointment of J. David Boyle, AVI's chief financial officer, to the additional role of interim president and CEO. That follows Leslie Hudson's resignation, at the request of the board, as president, CEO and a director.

• BioMerieux SA, of Marcy L'Etoile, France, and Knome Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., entered a strategic agreement to collaborate in the development of next-generation, sequence-based in vitro diagnostics. Under the agreement, bioMerieux will have exclusive rights to license Knome's proprietary genome analysis platform for use in the in vitro diagnostics market. Further, Knome will gain access to bioMerieux's intellectual property in DNA extraction and sample preparation. bioMerieux also purchased a $5 million equity stake in Knome.

• Cangene Corp., of Toronto, signed a new agreement with Baxter Healthcare Corp., of Deerfield, Ill., under which Cangene assumes the commercialization rights to WinRho SDF (Rho[D] Immune Globulin Intravenous [Human]) in the U.S. Cangene and Baxter have agreed to terminate an existing U.S. distribution agreement, which had granted U.S. distribution rights for WinRho SDF to Baxter since March 2005. Cangene will begin distributing the product June 1.

• Cell Therapeutics Inc., of Seattle, said that the European Medicines Agency's Pediatric Committee recommended that the company submit an updated pediatric investigation plan for pixantrone, following discussions about the preclinical and clinical pixantrone data. The company expects to submit a revised PIP to the agency by the end of the second quarter.

• ImmunoCellular Therapeutics Ltd., of Los Angeles, entered a sponsored research agreement and an option agreement with the University of Pennsylvania to support process development and manufacturing in a Phase II trial of ICT-107, the company's dendritic cell-based cancer vaccine product candidate for the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme.

• Labopharm Inc., of Laval, Quebec, said it has developed Intellitab, an abuse- and misuse-deterrent technology platform. The platform can deliver one or more therapeutic drugs in combination over periods of up to 24 hours and has the potential to provide a patient with a controlled-release medication while minimizing the risk of intentional abuse or accidental misuse.

• Micromet Inc., of Bethesda, Md., said that it has achieved a milestone under its collaboration agreement with Bayer Schering Pharma AG, of Leverkusen, Germany. The milestone was triggered by Micromet's achievement of preclinical proof of concept for a BiTE antibody for the treatment of solid tumors. Micromet is entitled to receive progress-dependent milestone payments of up to €285 million (US381.9 million) and up to double-digit royalties on net sales. In addition, Micromet will be reimbursed for its research and development expenses.

• Silence Therapeutics plc, and AstraZeneca plc, both of London, have agreed to a one-year extension of their ongoing small interfering RNA (siRNA) delivery collaboration. Under the collaboration, which was originally entered in March 2008, the companies are using a number of Silence's lipid delivery and targeting technologies to develop new delivery approaches for RNA interference therapeutics. Financial details were not disclosed, but both companies retain the right to commercialize solutions that emerge from the collaboration.

• Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, of Aliso Viejo, Calif., has signed a binding agreement to acquire a privately held but unnamed pharmaceutical company in Brazil, for approximately $56 million. The company primarily focuses on branded generics and over-the-counter products and had annual sales of approximately $30 million in 2009. Over the past five years, the company has delivered a compound annual growth rate of approximately 15 percent, Valeant said. The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2010 and will be accretive to Valeant in 2010.

• ZenBio Inc., of Research Triangle Park, N.C., has been awarded a Phase I SBIR grant to establish novel human cell-based models of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease useful for basic research and as a potential drug development platform. The project stems from its recent efforts to develop methods for differentiating adipose tissue-derived progenitor cells into hepatocyte-like cells. The award from the National Institutes of Health will fund proof-of-concept studies that those human hepatocyte-like cells can be used to mimic the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease in cell culture.