• Abbott Laboratories, of Abbott Park, Ill., said the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use, the scientific committee of the European Medicines Agency, issued a positive opinion recommending Humira's (adalimumab) approval in psoriatic arthritis and as first-line treatment for moderate to severe early rheumatoid arthritis.

• Aeolus Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Research Triangle Park, N.C., said Xmark Opportunity Funds and other investors, including the Biotechnology Value Fund LP, agreed to provide up to $2.5 million in funding in the form of convertible preferred stock and warrants. The funds are being provided primarily for animal testing and development of several compounds in Aeolus' pipeline in the areas of Parkinson's disease, autoimmune disorders, chronic obstructive lung disease, biodefense, tumor suppression and bone marrow transplantation and stroke. Under the terms, the funding is available to Aeolus as needed, and a dividend payment in the form of interest at the rate of 6 percent can be paid in either cash or common shares.

• Asterand Inc., of Detroit, expanded its business of supplying human tissues for drug discovery research in Europe with the opening of offices in the UK. The company's European initiative calls for new laboratories to be developed to provide a range of human tissues services and supplies.

• Bionomics Ltd., of Adelaide, Australia, said shareholders gave their formal support to the company's acquisition of Iliad Chemicals Pty. Ltd., of Melbourne, Australia, for $9 million. Shareholders also approved a $6 million placement to fund development programs in cancer and central nervous system disorders.

• Ciphergen Biosystems Inc., of Fremont, Calif., signed an agreement with Bayer Pharmaceuticals Corp., part of Bayer AG, of Leverkusen, Germany. The research will concentrate on identifying biomarkers and developing an assay that may be used in a clinical trial in cancer. Ciphergen will analyze patient samples from the Phase II trials at Ciphergen's Pharmaceutical Biomarker Discovery Center laboratory in Malvern, Pa., using its SELDI-TOF-MS platform and a method for enriching low-abundance proteins in biological fluids.

• Corgentech Inc., of South San Francisco, said preclinical data reported at the International Congress of Mucosal Immunology in Boston showed that its NF-kappaB Decoy drug candidate was effective in reducing disease activity in acute and chronic models of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. NF-kappaB Decoy delivered to inflamed areas of the gut was shown to significantly reduce inflammatory cell infiltrates and expression of pro-inflammatory genes and reverse disease-associated weight loss and tissue damage in multiple chronic and acute preclinical models of inflammatory bowel disease.

• Covance Inc., of Princeton, N.J., said its wholly owned subsidiary, Covance Research Products Inc, acquired the complete line of antibodies developed by Sternberger Monoclonals Inc., of Lutherville, Md. Covance said the products are suited for immunohistochemical studies and will complement its existing suite of antibody products for neuroscience and neurodegenerative disease research and discovery.

• Cytomedix Inc., of Rockville, Md., settled a patent dispute with Perfusion Partners and Associates Inc., of Fort Myers, Fla., and its affiliate organization, Transcorporeal Inc., on Cytomedix's platelet-derived therapies for treating wounds and other damaged tissue. As a result, Cytomedix granted a license to Perfusion Partners to use the patent in question for products and services, and Perfusion Partners agreed to pay royalties of $250,000 plus 10 percent of future gross sales of all licensed products and services. Perfusion Partners also agreed not to promote any products or services that infringe upon Cytomedix's patent that are not licensed by Cytomedix.

• Debiopharm SA, of Lausanne, Switzerland, signed a license and equity agreement with Neovacs SA, of Paris, for the development of a TNF alpha kinoid and its related technology programs. Terms of the deal call for Debiopharm and its wholly owned investment affiliate, Debioinnovation, to make up-front and milestone payments, in both cash and equity, at various stages of development. In addition, Debiopharm will fund the product's entire development. Upon commercialization, Neovacs will receive staggered royalties based on Debiopharm's revenues from worldwide sales. Potential indications include wasting syndromes such as cancer cachexia and autoimmune diseases. Debiopharm will fund and develop at least one indication until completion of Phase IIb before out-licensing to sales and marketing partners.

• EPIX Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., said the European Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has adopted a positive opinion on Berlin-based Schering AG's marketing authorization application for Vasovist (gadofosveset trisodium) for contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography for visualization of abdominal or limb vessels in patients with suspected or known vascular disease. The EU marketing application for MS-325, trade named Vasovist, was submitted in June 2004 by Schering, EPIX's worldwide development and marketing partner.

• Forbes Medi-Tech Inc., of Vancouver, British Columbia, completed a 90-day toxicity study for its cholesterol-lowering drug, FM-VP4. The final results, expected in August, will be used for the investigational new drug application for the upcoming Phase II trial.

• GeneGo Inc., of St. Joseph, Mich., was awarded a Small Business Innovation Research grant from the Department of Defense for the development of a systems biology suite of tools for visualization and analysis of proteomics data. In Phase I, the company will adapt its data-mining platform MetaCore for handling a range of proteomics data types, connectivity of those data with other OMICs datasets and develop new algorithms for reconstruction of protein-state specific biological networks and pathways.

• Jazz Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., completed its previously reported $122.6 million acquisition of Orphan Medical Inc., of Minnetonka, Minn. At the same time, Jazz completed an $80 million senior debt financing led by Lehman Brothers Principal Investments and including the General Electric Pension Trust, Deep Cove Mezzanine LLC and certain entities related to Oak Hill Advisors and Oak Hill Investment Management, respectively. Jazz, which is focused on neurology and psychiatry, has raised a total of $345 million in equity and debt funding since its formation in 2003.

• Kreatech Biotechnology BV, of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, signed a technology agreement with Ambion Inc., of Austin, Texas, to use Ambion's MessageAmp II aRNA amplification system in conjunction with its own Universal Linkage system labeling technology. The collaboration aims at providing a series of complete RNA amplification and labeling kits for gene-expression analysis. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Medicure Inc., of Winnipeg, Manitoba, in conjunction with the University of Manitoba and the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, received a collaborative research and development grant from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada for the development of their cholesterol-lowering platform. Medicure acquired the worldwide rights for the platform earlier this year from the University of Manitoba and the University of Ottawa Heart Institute.

• Migenix Inc., of Vancouver, said its partner, San Diego-based Cadence Pharmaceuticals Inc., reached agreement with the FDA on a special protocol assessment for a Phase III trial of MX-226 in the prevention of catheter-related infections. The confirmatory Phase III trial will evaluate the effectiveness of MX-226 vs. 10 percent povidone-iodine in 1,250 patients with central venous catheters. The primary efficacy endpoint will be the incidence of local catheter site infections, while other objectives will look at safety data and the effectiveness of the product to prevent catheter colonization. Migenix licensed MX-226 to Cadence in a North American and European development and commercialization deal totaling $32 million plus a double-digit royalty on net sales.

• Miraculins, of Winnipeg, Manitoba, acquired intellectual property assets of Europroteome AG, of Berlin, a former developer of products for the diagnostic, prognostic and patient-specific therapy of human cancers. The intellectual property portfolio includes 14 patents and numerous discoveries related to the diagnosis and treatment of several cancers, the company said, that uses the human sample collection of Europroteome, which contained samples from more than 4,000 patients. Miraculins purchased all rights to the patents and has no further milestone or royalty commitments related to them.

• NeoPharm Inc., of Lake Forest, Ill., said the independent data monitoring committee overseeing the company's Phase III PRECISE trial of cintredekin besudotox (IL13-PE38QQR) recommended that the trial continue as planned. The primary endpoint is designed to determine whether there is an improvement of at least 50 percent in median survival of patients with glioblastoma multiforme compared to treatment with Gliadel Wafer. NeoPharm also reported that trial enrollment was two-thirds complete, and could reach full enrollment of 300 patients by the end of the year. The study's second analysis is projected for the fourth quarter.

• Neurobiological Technologies Inc., of Richmond, California, signed agreements with Nordmark Arzneimittel GmbH & Co. KG, of Uetersen, Germany, and Baxter Pharmaceutical Solutions, part of Baxter Healthcare Corp., of Deerfield, Ill., to manufacture, fill and package Viprinex (ancrod) for NTI's Phase III trials in acute ischemic stroke. Nordmark will manufacture the biological active ingredient, ancrod, which is derived from the venom of the Malayan pit viper.

• OnSource Corp., of Denver, changed its name to Ceragenix Pharmaceuticals Inc., following its May 11 merger with Boulder, Colo.-based Osmotics Pharma Inc., to reflect its revised business strategy to deliver products for dermatology and infectious disease. In conjunction with the name change, Ceragenix now is listed on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board under the symbol "CGXP."

• OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Melville, N.Y., said that its ex-U.S. partner for Tarceva (erlotinib), F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., of Basel, Switzerland, received a positive opinion from the European Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use recommending approval of Tarceva in locally advanced or metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer after failure of at least one prior chemotherapy regimen.

• Pharmasset Inc., of Atlanta, entered an exclusive license agreement with Bukwang Pharm. Co. Ltd., of Seoul, South Korea, under which Pharmasset will develop and commercialize the antiviral Clevudine for chronic hepatitis B virus infections in the Americas, Europe and other select territories. Also known as L-FMAU, Clevudine is an oral, once-daily nucleoside analogue currently in Phase III trials in Korea and has been the subject of earlier-stage clinical trials under an investigational new drug application filed with the FDA. At the same time, Bukwang received an option on Racivir for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B in Korea. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Theravance Inc., of South San Francisco, reported the results of a Phase II study designed to assess the bronchodilator duration, safety and tolerability of GSK159797, the lead compound in the Beyond Advair collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline plc, of London. The results showed clinically significant increases in bronchodilation over 24 hours with little impact on heart rate at clinically relevant doses. GSK159797 is an inhaled, longer-acting Beta2 agonist discovered by Theravance.

• Valentis Inc., of Burlingame, Calif., completed a private placement of about 1.7 million shares of the company's common stock and warrants to purchase up to about 840,000 additional shares of the company's common stock at $2.50 per unit, for aggregate gross proceeds of about $4.2 million. The five-year warrants are exercisable at a price of $3.51 per share. The company issued and sold the shares of common stock and warrants to selected institutional and individual accredited investors, including current stockholders.

• Vernalis plc, of London, said six-month interim data indicated that frovatriptan, the company's menstrually related migraine (MRM) drug, is well tolerated when used as a six-day dosing regimen to for up to six menstrual periods as preventative therapy. No serious adverse events were recorded. The results, presented at the 47th annual meeting of the American Headache Society in Philadelphia, will be included in a supplemental new drug application expected to be submitted during the first half of 2006 to market the drug as a short-term prophylaxis for MRM.