• ActoGeniX, of Ghent, Belgium, received a €0.53 million ($700,000) grant from the Flemish government through the Institute for Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders to support the discovery and development of its ActoBiotic for the treatment of Clostridium difficile-associated enteric disease.

• Apeiron Biologics AG, of Vienna, Austria, has acquired from Merck KGaA, of Darmstadt, Germany, rights to develop and commercialize immunocytokine hu14.18-IL2. Apeiron said it will continue clinical development and investigate the protein's therapeutic potential for pediatric neuroblastoma and will evaluate strategies to advance it in other cancer indications, such as melanoma. Financial details were not disclosed.

• Aphios Corp., of Woburn, Mass., contracted with SAIC-Frederick, a subsidiary of Science Applications International Corp., to develop a therapy for pancreatic cancer based on phospholipid nano-encapsulated camptothecin, called camposomes. Studies of camposomes in mice with lymphoma xenografts resulted in several instances of mice being cured.

• Astex Therapeutics, of Cambridge, UK, received a milestone payment of £1 million (US$1.61 million) from the Wellcome Trust to support the company's work in the area of infectious disease caused by hepatitis C virus (HCV). The payment is the second installment of a £2 million award by Wellcome to the company in 2009 under its "Seeding Drug Discovery" initiative. The milestone payment was triggered by the identification of potent, small-molecule inhibitors of HCV NS3 – a key protein involved in viral replication. The compounds act as allosteric modulators of the NS3 protein, resulting in inhibition of the enzyme activities of both protease and helicase in wild type and in drug-resistant variants of HCV that have arisen in the clinic during treatment with active site inhibitors. Astex retains commercial rights to drug candidates resulting from the program.

• Axcan Holdings Inc., of Bridgewater, N.J., extended the tender offer of wholly owned subsidiary Axcan Pharma Holding BV to purchase the outstanding shares of Eurand NV, of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, at $12 per share. The tender offer is scheduled to expire at 12:01 a.m., Eastern Time, Feb. 3. To date, 38,546,690 shares, or approximately 80.235% of the shares outstanding, have been tendered.

• Genzyme Corp., of Cambridge, Mass., sold its diagnostics business to Sekisui Chemical Co. Ltd., of Tokyo, for $265 million in cash. Substantially all of the assets of the business such as diagnostic product lines and technologies, were included. The 575 employees of the business will be retained. Sekisui will supply Genzyme with enzymes for production of Cerezyme. Genzyme also announced that it will sell its pharmaceutical intermediates business to an affiliate of International Chemical Investors Group, which will then also become a supplier for Genzyme. (See BioWorld Today, Nov. 19, 2010.)

• Horizon Discovery, of Cambridge, UK, signed an exclusive worldwide license to inventions relating to improved rates of recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV)-mediated gene-editing in humans developed at the University of Minnesota. Horizon will fund a two-year sponsored research program aimed at yielding a tenfold increase in the gene-editing frequency of its rAAV Genesis platform technology. The license calls for Horizon to pay up-front and milestone fees and an ongoing royalty on sales of commercial products. Horizon will pay $400,000 in fees for the sponsored research program, which runs for an initial period of two years.

• Intrexon Corp., of Research Triangle Park, N.C., acquired Agarigen Inc., of Durham, N.C., which has developed a mushroom-based expression platform for recombinant proteins.

• iPerian Inc., of South San Francisco, and Kyoto University and iPS Academia Japan Inc. entered a series of intellectual property agreements creating a unified, worldwide patent estate covering induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology. iPierian said it has assigned Kyoto University the iPSC patent estate it previously acquired from Berlin-based Bayer Schering Pharma AG in 2008. Kyoto University and iPS Academia Japan Inc. have granted iPierian nonexclusive worldwide rights to its combined patent estate relating to iPSC technology for use in drug discovery and development. iPierian's therapeutic focus has been neurodegenerative diseases, including spinal muscular atrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease.

• Omeros Corp., of Seattle, said the European Medicines Agency (EMA) confirmed that OMS103HP is eligible to be submitted for marketing approval in the European Union through the EMA centralized procedure. OMS103HP is Omeros' lead product candidate currently in a Phase III program evaluating the drug's safety and ability to improve postoperative joint function and reduce pain following anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction surgery. Omeros said it expects Phase III results this quarter.

The FDA granted fast-track designation to carfilzomib by Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Emeryville, Calif., for relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma. The company recently reported positive results for the drug from a Phase IIb study, and based on those results, Onxy began a rolling submission of a new drug application for accelerated approval of carfilzomib. The new drug application will be complete as early as mid-2011. Carfilzomib already received orphan drug designation from the FDA in 2008 for multiple myeloma.

• PTC Therapeutics Inc., of South Plainfield, N.J., and Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD) expanded their collaboration to discover treatments for patients with Duchenne's/Becker muscular dystrophy. PPMD has awarded PTC a $250,000 grant, with the potential of additional funding, to advance drug discovery efforts in identifying a treatment that improves heart function in DBMD patients.

• Transdel Pharmaceuticals Inc., of La Jolla, Calif., as been exploring strategic alternatives with investment banks American MedTech Advisors and ESC Advisors, a division of KEMA Partners, designed to continue further development of TDLP-110 (Ketotransdel), Transdel's lead late-stage pain product. Transdel said it has completed the first Phase III trial for TDLP-110.

• Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc., of Mississauga, Ontario, agreed to acquire privately held branded generics and over-the-counter pharmaceutical company PharmaSwiss SA, of Zug, Switzerland, for €350 million ($484.0 million). Upon closing, PharmaSwiss is expected to have approximately €38 million cash on hand and no debt. Up to an additional €30 million may be payable to certain stockholders of PharmaSwiss based upon achievement of certain milestones. PharmaSwiss has a product portfolio in seven therapeutic areas and operations in 19 countries throughout Central and Eastern Europe, as well as Greece and Israel. The company had 2010 revenues of approximately €180 million. The transaction is expected to close in the first or second quarter and to be immediately accretive to Valeant.