• BioReliance Manufacturing GmbH, of Heidelberg, Germany, is being bought out from Invitrogen Corp., of Carlsbad, Calif. A consortium of more than 10 private investors has supported the management buyout. Terms were not disclosed, but Thomas Pultar, CEO of the new company, which will operate as Biomeva GmbH, said the organization posted €9.8 million (US$12.4 million) in revenues in 2005 and that it has been consistently profitable. Biomeva will continue to offer production of active pharmaceutical ingredients from bacterial expression systems, along with cell banking and analytical services. Biomeva has 38 employees and offers scale-up manufacturing from 10L through 100L to 1000L.

• Cancer Research UK, of London, announced plans to revive cancer drugs that have been shelved because the pharmaceutical or biotech companies that own them have other priorities. Working in collaboration with the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, CRUK will take drugs into early stage clinical trials through a new program called Clinical Development Partnerships.

• Elan Corp plc, of Dublin, Ireland, and Biogen Idec Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., said the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use, which is the scientific committee of the European Medicines Agency (EMEA), issued a positive opinion recommending marketing authorization for Tysabri (natalizumab) for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis to delay the progression of disability and reduce the frequency of relapses. The panel recommended that Tysabri be used as single disease modifying therapy either in patients with highly active relapsing-remitting MS who failed to respond to treatment with a beta-interferon, or in patients who have rapidly evolving severe relapsing-remitting MS. In the U.S., Biogen Idec and Elan pulled Tysabri off the market last year after the drug was linked to progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, a potentially fatal disorder, and the FDA has yet to decide whether selling can resume.

• Eurogentec SA, of Liege, Belgium, acquired a license to array patents developed by Edwin Southern, the founder of Oxford Gene Technology Ltd., of Oxford, UK. The intellectual property represents the fundamental patents covering the manufacture and use and marketing of oligonucleotide microarrays. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Faust Pharmaceuticals, of Strasbourg, France, completed a Phase IIa trial of its lead compound, FP0011, in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The trial confirmed the safety and tolerance of the drug, as well as the feasibility of administering it in combination with riluzole, the only ALS treatment on the market. Another Phase IIa trial of FP0011 is under way in Parkinson's disease, and Faust's CEO, Thomas C. Seoh, said the company plans to conduct a Phase IIb trial of the drug in either ALS or Parkinson's. FP0011 acts by reducing the presynaptic release of glutamate, a neurotransmitter that causes neuron cell death at high concentrations.

• IDM Pharma Inc, of San Diego, appointed Hervé Duchesne de Lamotte managing director, France, and vice president, finance. Duchesne de Lamotte joined IDM as financial director in 1998 and was one of the company's founders.

• NPS Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Salt Lake City, and Nycomed Group, of Roskilde, Denmark, said the European Commission granted marketing authorization for Preotact (parathyroid hormone [rDNA origin] for injection). Preotact is the European brand name for Preos, which NPS licensed to Nycomed in 2004 for development and marketing in Europe. Preotact is approved to treat postmenopausal women with osteoporosis at high risk for fractures. It will be launched in Europe later this year. NPS received an approvable letter for Preos from the FDA in March.

• Primagen Holding BV, of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, expanded its exclusive, worldwide license for the CD133 diagnostic biomarker to include the cardiovascular field. The company originally licensed the biomarker from The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. CD133 is a genetic expression marker for presence of developing endothelial cells in the peripheral blood circulation and is associated with angiogenesis. Primagen is developing molecular diagnostic products based on the measurement of CD133 expression in peripheral blood cells. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Santaris Pharma A/S, of Copenhagen, Denmark, and the University of Copenhagen's Department for Medical Biochemistry and Genetics created the MicroRNA Research Consortium to focus on microRNAs as new drug targets. The school has been researching the recently discovered human genetic switches, which appear to be specific for particular cancer types and regulate the severity of cancer, as well as being involved in other serious human diseases. The company's Locked Nucleic Acid (LNA) drug technology has the potential to single out and inactivate such disease-causing genes. The consortium is being supported in part with funding from the Danish Advanced Technology Foundation.

• Scottish Enterprise, of Glasgow, Scotland, announced the formation of two new investment funds. The Scottish Seed Fund will invest up to £100,000 (US$183,919) in start-ups and early stage companies that are seeking first round funding, while the Scottish Venture Fund will be able to invest up to £2 million of public money in individual deals that are backed by matching private sector investment.

• SkyePharma plc, of London, said the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency approved the firm's DepoDur for the treatment of pain following major surgery. Previously referred to as DepoMorphine, DepoDur is a single-dose sustained-release injectable formulation of morphine and was approved in the U.S. in May 2004.

• Transgene SA, of Strasbourg, France, reported positive results from a Phase II trial of TG4001 (MVA-HPV-IL2) in high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN2/3), which is related to human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV 16). The trial was conducted on 21 women ages 25 to 44, and the results after six months showed that nine out of 18 women had no CIN2/3, which is regarded as clinically meaningful, and nine out of 18 no HPV16E6/E7 mRNA. Above all, surgery was avoided in nine out of 18 of the subjects. Transgene CEO Philippe Archinard described the results as the "first validation of the therapeutic vaccination approach in infectious diseases."

• TransPharma-Medical Ltd., of Lod, Israel, received a milestone payment of an undisclosed amount from Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd., of Jerusalem, after completing initial clinical trials for a joint development agreement that dates back two years. The milestone relates to the first of up to five molecules designated for development by the partners. Under the agreement, Teva would exclusively market each of the products and would pay milestone payments, royalties and development costs to TransPharma, a company with transdermal drug delivery technology.