• ArQule Inc., of Woburn, Mass., and Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd., of Tokyo, said they are expanding their research, development and license agreement for the discovery of novel kinase inhibitors in the field of oncology. The expanded agreement establishes a third therapeutic target, with an option for a fourth, in the field of oncology, and it includes a two-year extension based on the application of the ArQule Kinase Inhibitor Platform technology.

• AstraZeneca plc, of London, and Pozen Inc., of Chapel Hill, N.C., said that Vimovo (naproxen/ esomeprazole magnesium) 500/20 mg modified-release tablets cleared an important regulatory milestone by receiving positive agreement for approval in 23 countries across the European Union. This follows all 22 concerned member states agreeing with the assessment of the Netherlands Health Authority, acting as the reference member state for the decentralized procedure. It also results in a harmonized summary of product characteristics. The member states will now pursue pricing and reimbursement and national approvals.

• BioTime Inc., of Alameda, Calif., will now be known as BTX instead of BTIM on the NYSE Amex.

• CyDex Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Lenexa, Kan., and Prism Pharmaceuticals Inc., of King of Prussia, Pa., have mutually decided to terminate their existing joint development agreement on novel Captisol-enabled intravenous formulations of clopidogrel, which provides CyDex the full development and commercialization rights to the product candidate.

• ERYtech Pharma, of Lyon, France, joined a collaboration with Genzyme Corp. to develop a therapeutic enzyme formulation for Genzyme disease indications using technology developed by ERYtech. The agreement lasts for 15 months and will cover studies to evaluate the feasibility of enzyme encapsulation and preclinical studies of that formulation. Upon expiration of the agreement, Cambridge, Mass.-based Genzyme has an option to license and commercialize the product.

• Halozyme Therapeutics Inc., of San Diego, said that it is focusing resources on advancing its core proprietary programs through key clinical inflection points in 2011 and 2012. In addition, the company will use its resources to support strategic alliances with Roche AG, of Basel, Switzerland, and Baxter Healthcare Corp., of Deerfield, Ill. Halozyme will continue full development of its Phase II Ultrafast Insulin, Phase 1 PEGPH20, and preclinical HTI-501 programs, but will decrease research relating to the discovery and preclinical assessment of new compounds, resulting in a reduction in the work force of about 25 percent. The company expects to incur a one-time charge in the fourth quarter related to the work force reduction that will be mostly offset by reduced payroll expenses during the quarter. The implementation of this strategy is not expected to impact previous net cash burn guidance, and management reiterates its guidance of $40 million to $45 million of net cash burn for 2010.

• MorphoSys AG, of Martinsried, Germany, and Proteros Biostructures GmbH, of Munich, Germany, said they were awarded a grant by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research of about €850,000 (US$1.18 million). The grant will support both companies in establishing a new technology platform for efficient structural characterization of antibody-antigen complexes. MorphoSys will provide relevant antigen and antibody molecules, and Proteros will provide advanced X-ray technology and computational chemistry know-how. The high resolution access to antibody-antigen-complex structures is expected to allow a faster and more efficient engineering of therapeutic antibodies.

• NanoBio Corp., of Ann Arbor, Mich., and the University of Michigan Medical School received a $1.5 million grant from the Department of Defense to study the use of nanoemulsion-based therapies for protection against burn and wound infections. Funds will support investigational new drug application-enabling studies of NB-201, a nanoemulsion-based topical anti-infective treatment based on NanoBio's NanoStat technology.

• Sirius Genomics Inc., of Vancouver, British Columbia, has partnered with Bozeman, Montana-based Golden Helix Inc. to develop a companion diagnostic for Vasopressin and similar drugs. Golden Helix will contribute its single nucleotide polymorphism and copy number variant analysis technology to Sirius's pipeline to identify potential genetic markers in septic shock and related disorders that would predict a positive response to a drug. For Sirius, the partnership supplements funding from the National Research Council of Canada.

• Summit Corp. plc, of Oxford, UK, said preclinical results showed that SMT 19969 met the target profile for Clostridium difficile antibiotics of potency against the bacterium, a very narrow spectrum of activity to prevent recurrence of the infection and an excellent resistance profile.

• Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Marlborough, Mass., previously Sepracor Inc., said it has formally changed its name. The company operates as a unit of Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma Co. Ltd., of Osaka, Japan, which acquired Sepracor last year. (See BioWorld Today, Sept. 24, 2009.)

• Vivalis, of Nantes, France, said the Kitasato Institute signed a research license agreement to evaluate the replication of an undisclosed virus in Vivalis' EB66 cell line for the manufacturing of human vaccines. Terms were not disclosed.

• Xencor Inc., of Monrovia, Calif., received a milestone payment from Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, of Ingelheim, Germany, triggered by regulatory submission of a monoclonal antibody developed under a 2007 licensing agreement between the two companies. The antibody was optimized using Xencor's XmAb Fc technology which Xencor said improves the capacity of the antibody to recruit immune system destruction of the tumor cell. Boehringer Ingelheim exercised an option to use the technology in another oncology discovery program.