• Amarillo Biosciences Inc., of Amarillo, Texas, has accepted a relocation package of financial incentives from Junction City, Kan. Under the terms of the agreement, the company will move all operations to Kansas before the end of the second quarter. Junction City is expected to nominate a member to the company's board.

• Bionovo Inc., of Emeryville, Calif., said it has implemented several cost-control actions to maximize its cash without delaying key program activities. The firm reduced its staff by about 15 percent, eliminated executive management bonuses for 2008 and executive management pay rate increases for this year, agreed to defer work on preclinical drug candidates in favor of clinical programs and increased its effort on project partnership and strategic investors. Bionovo's pipeline includes Menerba (MF101) for menopausal hot flashes and BZL101 in advanced breast cancer. Shares of Bionovo (NASDAQ:BNVI) lost 2 cents, to close Thursday at 31 cents.

• Brain AG, of Zwingenberg, Germany, and DSM, of the Netherlands, have partnered in the fields of enzyme systems and strain development for the fermentative production of specialty chemicals. The goal of the project is to generate new metabolic production pathways.

• Genzyme Corp., of Cambridge, Mass., has paid $64 million to former shareholders of its Genzyme Biosurgery division, the former tracking stock of Genzyme. The money is from a class-action lawsuit filed against Genzyme in connection with its consolidation of the tracking stocks that resulted in the forced buyback of all the outstanding stock of Biosurgery for $1.77 per share in 2003, which was 32 percent below the market price of Biosurgery stock. The amount of the settlement had been sealed by a court order until recently.

• InNexus Biotechnology Inc., of Vancouver, British Columbia, said it completed a large-scale primate study confirming the effectiveness and safety of lead candidate DXL625 (CD20) and expects to meet with the FDA during the first half of the year to discuss a clinical study design. Data from the primate study showed that DXL625 was effective in completely eliminating all lymphocytes with a CD20 marker with hours at the lowest dose tested and no adverse events were seen at a dose 100-fold higher than the lowest dose.

• ISTA Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Irvine, Calif., said its new drug application for Bepreve (bepotastine ophthalmic solution) was accepted for review by the FDA. The company is seeking approval for Bepreve as an eye-drop treatment for ocular itching associated with allergic conjunctivitis. The PDUFA date is Sept. 12.

• Modigene Inc., of Nes-Ziona, Israel, reported results from a pilot toxicity study in primates, which showed no adverse events of injection with hGH-CTP, its long-acting human growth hormone known as MOD-4023, and said data supported a once-weekly or bi-monthly injection frequency in humans. The study included a group of primates that received a single injection of hGH-CTP containing a dose that was 1,040 times the daily dose of growth hormone recommended for use in human patients. Modigene expects to complete the Phase I program for MOD-4023 and continue into Phase II trials over the next 24 months.

• Morphotek Inc., of Exton, Pa., a subsidiary of Eisai Corp. of North America, has signed an evaluation agreement with the University Hospital Heidelberg and its technology transfer office to advance the company's efforts to discover and develop therapeutic antibodies in oncology. The agreement provides for an undisclosed research grant to the University Hospital/National Center for Tumor Diseases and for use by Morphotek of biological materials to generate and validate therapeutic monoclonal antibodies to oncology targets selected by Morphotek.

• Osiris Therapeutics Inc., of Columbia, Md., said it held a successful pre-biologics license application meeting for Prochymal in graft-vs.-host disease, reaching agreement with the FDA on several points, including the proposed content and structure of the BLA filing, the use of GvHD complete response as a primary endpoint for the Phase III trial, the statistical plan analysis, the safety database and requirements for chemistry, manufacturing and controls data. Osiris and the FDA also discussed the need for an expanded access program to make Prochymal available to critically ill, steroid-refractory adult GvHD patients in the interim. A similar plan already is in place for pediatric GvHD patients. Prochymal is a preparation of mesenchymal stem cells obtained from the bone marrow of healthy donors and formulated for intravenous infusion. Osiris gained a partner for that product in November, signing Cambridge, Mass.-based Genzyme Corp. to an ex-U.S. commercialization agreement. (See BioWorld Today, Nov. 5, 2008.)

• Proteus SA, of Nimes, France, said it entered an agreement with Basel, Switzerland-based Syngenta AG to develop high-performing enzymes for next-generation biofuel production. Both diversity screening and directed evolution methods will be used to discover and optimize those enzymes for the conversion of biomass into biofuels. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Schering-Plough Corp., of Kenilworth, N.J., said the FDA issued a complete response letter for Saphris (asenapine) sublingual tablets in the acute treatment of schizophrenia and in the acute treatment of manic or mixed episodes associated with bipolar I disorder. The letter included proposed labeling and asked for supplemental data from existing studies, but no additional trials have been requested. The company, which gained rights to the product through its 2007 acquisition of Oss, the Netherlands-based Organon BioSciences NV, expects to provide the requested information to the FDA this quarter.

• Verdezyne Inc., of Laguna Hills, Calif., has signed a new project with Genencor, a division of Copenhagen, Denmark-based Danisco A/S, in which Verdezyne will use its technologies to generate enzyme variants. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• VistaGen Therapeutics Inc., of South San Francisco, and Capsant, of Southampton, UK, signed a commercialization agreement to combine their stem cell biology and 3D cell culture platforms, respectively, to focus on late-stage development and commercialization of a new generation of human stem cell-based biological tools. Financial terms were not disclosed.