• Acacia Research Corp., of Newport Beach, Calif., said that its CombiMatrix group is collaborating with Novavax Inc., of Malvern, Pa., on development of a technique for in-process monitoring of vaccine production.

• Access Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Dallas, announced the restructuring and repayment of its 7 percent convertible promissory notes due Sept. 13, 2005. One holder of $4 million agreed to amend the notes to a new maturity date of April 28, 2007, though the company was unable to reach agreement with another $4 million holder and will pay that amount plus interest to that holder. In October, the company closed the sale of its oral care business to Uluru Inc., a start-up company based in Dallas, and retired its $2.6 million senior secured convertible notes. Funds from that sale will go toward advancing the company's polymer-linked cytotoxic oncology product, AP5346. Access also has $5.5 million of 7 percent convertible notes due Sept. 13, 2010. (See BioWorld Today, Oct. 14, 2005.)

• Avexa Ltd., of Victoria, Australia, entered a collaboration with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia's national research agency, to discover drugs for the treatment of viral diseases. As part of the agreement, Avexa will screen CSIRO Molecular and Health Technologies' chemical library across its antiviral assays to identify compounds that are selectively active in preventing virus replication. Avexa and CSIRO will work together to find potential drug leads and optimize those leads into development candidates, then Avexa will pursue preclinical and clinical development. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Bioenvision Inc., of New York, said the median duration of response for clofarabine in patients with acute myeloid leukemia currently is 440 days, an improvement on the data first presented in December 2004. That data highlighted clofarabine's benefit in those patients with a complete response rate of 56 percent and a median duration of response. The new data were presented at the UK's annual review of acute myeloid leukemia in Birmingham, UK.

• Cell Therapeutics Inc., of Seattle, said a study of pixantrone in combination with Rituxan (rituximab, Biogen Idec Inc. and Genentech Inc.) vs. Rituxan alone in 38 relapsed or refractory patients who had previously failed up to five prior treatments for indolent non-Hodgkin's lymphoma achieved its primary endpoint of time to disease progression. Patients receiving combination therapy had an 87 percent overall improvement, compared to Rituxan alone. The median time to disease progression estimate for the pixantrone/Rituxan recipients was 13.2 months, compared to 8.1 months for the Rituxan group. One- and two-year progression-free survival estimates were 66 percent and 44 percent for the combination group vs. 0 percent for the Rituxan-only patients at both measurement intervals. The data were presented at the CIBC World Markets 16th Annual Healthcare Conference in New York.

• Chemokine Therapeutics Corp., of Vancouver, British Columbia, reported positive preclinical results for CTCE-9908 against a human prostate cancer cell line. The compound prevented the spread of cancer in animals with established human prostate cancer to distant organs by 61 percent on average, following either daily subcutaneous or intraperitoneal administration. The company is planning further studies to assess the cumulative benefits of CTCE-9908, a small peptide analogue of Chemokine SDF-1, in combination with existing chemotherapeutic agents.

• CollaGenex Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Newtown, Pa., said the National Institutes of Health awarded the company a $962,000 grant for additional research into the anti-inflammatory effects of incyclinide, a compound in Phase II trials to treat acne. The grant will be paid over two years and will support CollaGenex's manufacturing and formulation development of incyclinide, as well as its preclinical studies.

• Cryptome Pharmaceuticals Ltd., of Melbourne, Australia, said it will receive more than $850,000 from Dairy Australia over the next three years to conduct research that could identify and characterize proteins and fragments of proteins in milk. In other news, the Dairy Cooperative Research Centre in Melbourne agreed to a collaboration with South San Francisco-based ParAllele BioScience Inc., which recently was acquired by Affymetrix Inc., to screen the DNA of more than 1,500 elite Australian dairy bulls. The technology from ParAllele aims to enable researchers to screen the DNA of individual sires bred and performance-tested for Australian conditions using stored semen supplied by Genetics Australia. Patterns observed in the bulls' genetic markers could be correlated with particular traits and be used to directly identify elite cattle.

• Digene Corp., of Gaithersburg, Md., intends to offer 2 million shares of common stock and Armonk Partners, its principal stockholder, intends to offer another 1 million shares. Digene and Armonk expect to grant the underwriters an option to purchase 450,000 additional shares to cover overallotments. JP Morgan Securities Inc. is acting as the sole book-running manager in the offering with Thomas Weisel Partners LLC acting as joint lead manager, and Goldman, Sachs & Co. and SG Cowen & Co. LLC acting as co-managers. Digene focuses on DNA and RNA testing systems for the screening, monitoring and diagnosis of human diseases, particularly women's cancers and infectious diseases.

• Discovery Partners International Inc., of San Diego, received an undisclosed milestone payment as part of its 2003 agreement with Tokyo-based Seikagaku Corp. Seikagaku has advanced an undisclosed compound identified by Discovery Partners to the next stage of development.

• GeneGo Inc., of St. Joseph, Mich., said that Velcura Therapeutics Inc., of Ann Arbor, Mich., licensed Metacore, GeneGo's manually curated pathways database and data mining suite. Terms were not disclosed.

• Generex Biotechnology Corp., of Toronto, said its subsidiary, Antigen Express Inc., has made proposals for co-development of its H5N1 avian influenza vaccine in China. The proposals were made to the Harbin Veterinary Research Institute, Sinovac Biotech Co. Ltd. and to an institute within the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Scientists at Antigen Express are developing a vaccine that uses conserved fragments of the H5 protein to stimulate T-helper cell activity.

• GenTel BioSurfaces Inc., of Madison, Wis., said it partnered with Taiwan-based Abnova Corp. to combine Abnova's high-throughput protein and antibody content manufacturing capabilities with GenTel's multiplex immunoassay development service. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• GPC Biotech AG, of Martinsried, Germany, received clearance from the Paul-Erhlich-Institut to initiate clinical testing in Germany with the 1D09C3 cancer monoclonal antibody. The study is an open-label, Phase I trial evaluating 1D09C3 in patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell tumors who have failed prior standard therapy.

• IDM Pharma Inc., of San Diego, initiated a Phase II trial in Europe of its therapeutic vaccine, Uvidem, under development in collaboration with Sanofi-Aventis Group, of Paris, for melanoma. The trial will recruit 50 patients with resected Stage II or III melanoma. The primary objective is to evaluate a specific immune response to the vaccine after treatment with Uvidem, with or without peginterferon alpha-2b.

• Illumina Inc., of San Diego, signed a genotyping services agreement to support colorectal cancer researchers funded by Cancer Research UK. The multimillion dollar agreement extends over several years and includes two major phases. In the first phase, Illumina's service group will conduct dense, whole-genome genotyping for at least 4,000 well-classified colorectal patients and controls. In the second phase, Illumina will genotype more than 10,000 samples using a custom, multi-sample BeadChip that will enable analysis of 20,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms per sample.

• MultiCell Technologies Inc., of Lincoln, R.I., said its subsidiary, MultiCell ImmunoTherapeutics, elevated MCT-465 to lead drug candidate status and will commence evaluation of it in preclinical animal models infected with the H5N1 strain of influenza A virus.

• Myriad Genetics Inc., of Salt Lake City, said its underwriters have exercised in full an overallotment option for about 1.1 million shares of common stock at $18.50 per share, bringing the total amount raised to $148.9 million. The company recently raised $129.5 million in a public offering of 7 million shares at the same price. Underwriters include JP Morgan Securities Inc.; Bear, Stearns & Co. Inc.; UBS Securities LLC; Piper Jaffray & Co.; First Albany Capital Inc. and JMP Securities LLC. (See BioWorld Today, Nov. 7, 2005.)

• Serono SA, of Geneva, said data show that treatment with Rebif (interferon beta-1a) in patients with multiple sclerosis does not alter the immune response to influenza vaccination. Immune response was assessed during a four-week study involving 163 MS patients, randomized to either receive 44 mcg of Rebif three times weekly for at least six months before administration of the flu vaccine or to not receive interferon treatment within six months prior to study entry. Data from both groups were similar on the primary endpoint, defined by the proportion of patients achieving a hemagglutination inhibition titer >40 weeks after vaccination. The results were presented at the XVIIIth World Congress of Neurology in Sydney, Australia.

• Stem Cell Therapeutics Corp., of Calgary, Alberta, and Medicon A/S, of Birkerod, Denmark, received approval to begin the Phase I study of Stem Cells' NTx-265 program for stroke. The Danish Medicines Agency and the Institutional Review Board have both responded to the study protocol submission with written consent.