• Agilent Technologies Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., introduced an updated microarray-based Comparative Genomic Hybridization platform featuring high-definition CGH microarrays. Researchers can design their own CGH microarrays to target specific "hot spots" in the genome. Platform enhancements also include reagents and analytics software updates.

• Discovery Laboratories Inc., of Warrington, Pa., received written notification from the FDA outlining items that need to be addressed to support approval of Surfaxin. Discovery Labs submitted a response letter in July after the agency issued an approvable letter for Surfaxin (lucinactant) for the prevention of respiratory distress syndrome in premature infants. The FDA's notification requested additional information, including clarifications regarding chemistry and manufacturing issues. The company plans to submit the information to the FDA in October, and it anticipates the approval of Surfaxin in April 2006. (See BioWorld Today, Aug. 16, 2005.)

• Diversa Corp., of San Diego, said researchers at Oregon State University and Diversa sequenced and analyzed Pelagibacter ubique, the smallest, most-streamlined genome identified to date for any free-living organism. That organism, found in the ocean, appears to play a role in the cycling of carbon on Earth and shows a tendency to thrive where most other cells would die. The research is published in the current issue of the journal Science.

• Forest Laboratories Inc., of New York, launched an oral solution formulation in the U.S. of Namenda (memantine HCl), the only approved treatment for moderate to severe Alzheimer's disease. The oral solution offers an alternative for those patients who have trouble swallowing tablets, and for those who prefer taking medicine in liquid form. Namenda was approved in October 2003.

• ProlX Pharmaceuticals Corp., of Tucson, Ariz., was awarded a number of Small Business Innovation Research grants from the National Institutes of Health totaling more than $1.2 million for the next 12 months. The grants support further preclinical development of the company's lead drug candidate, the thioredoxin-1 inhibitor PX-12, as well as studies of drugs in the company's pipeline, including HIF, PI3-kinase and thioredoxin reductase inhibitors.

• Sanofi-Aventis Group, of Bridgewater, N.J., said the Journal of Clinical Oncology published the results of a Phase III trial demonstrating that Taxotere (docetaxel) injection concentrate significantly improved overall survival and median time to disease progression compared with paclitaxel in women with advanced breast cancer whose cancer had progressed after previous treatment with an anthracycline-based therapy. The study shows a statistically significant median overall survival of 15.4 months for Taxotere vs. 12.7 months for paclitaxel.

• Savient Pharmaceuticals Inc., of East Brunswick, N.J., said it received notice that it is not in compliance with listing rules of the Nasdaq National Market because it has not filed its quarterly report for the period ended June 30. The company will begin trading under the symbol "SVNTE." Savient determined that it had made an error in recording its reserve for returns in the first quarter of 2005, causing the filing delay.

• Tapestry Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Boulder, Colo., said the founder and former chairman, president and CEO of its predecessor company, NaPro Biotherapeutics Inc., died in a private airplane crash south of Sundre, Alberta, on the evening of Aug. 9. Sterling Ainsworth, who was 65, founded NaPro with Patricia Pilia in 1991. He was a pioneer and significant contributor to the early development of paclitaxel.

• Viennese Christian Doppler Laboratory for Gene Therapeutic Vector Development, at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria, has shown for the first time that mouse mammary tumor virus, which causes breast cancer in mice, can also infect human cells. The findings do not necessarily mean that the virus is involved in the development of human breast cancer. The results are published in the current edition of Cancer Research.