• 7TM Pharma A/S, of H rsholm, Denmark, entered a research agreement with AstraZeneca plc, of London, under which it will apply its structure-based approach to drug discovery to targets supplied by AstraZeneca. Financial terms were not disclosed. 7TM's drug discovery efforts combine medicinal chemistry skills with an understanding of how ligands bind to 7TM receptors, a protein superfamily that includes G protein-coupled receptors. Its main therapeutic focus is obesity but it has programs in inflammation, angiogenesis and cardiovascular disease. The company will select its first preclinical drug development candidate before year-end, it said.

• Allergy Therapeutics Ltd., of Worthing, UK, signaled that it is considering an initial public offering in October, seeking to raise £15 million (US$26.9 million) on London's Alternative Investment Market, for a valuation of about £55 million, although a decision has not formally been made. The company also is considering other forms of funding. It is targeting partnering agreements as one source but is not pursuing private investors. Allergy wants the money to increase the potency and patient acceptability of its allergy vaccines by adding the adjuvant monophosphoryl lipid A.

• Artemis Pharmaceuticals GmbH, of Cologne, Germany, and Acceleron Pharma Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., signed a cooperation agreement in mouse genetics. Artemis will apply its ArteMice technology platforms to generate a genetically engineered mouse model system for Acceleron. ArteMice Conditional gene targeting and Arte Mice Speed technologies are designed to allow the generation of genetically modified mouse lines.

• Benitec Ltd., of St. Lucia, Australia, settled its pending patent-infringement case against Genscript Corp., of Piscataway, N.J. As part of the settlement, Genscript gained a worldwide, nonexclusive license to make and sell DNA-directed, RNAi-based products. The settlement resolves all claims asserted in the dispute between the companies. Separately, Benitec and City of Hope in Los Angeles began a sponsored research agreement for an HIV/AIDS drug using Benitec's ddRNAi technology. Benitec anticipates that the therapeutic, which is expected to attack multiple targets of the HIV virus simultaneously, will enter the clinic in 2005, although that would be subject to another agreement with City of Hope.

• Crucell NV, of Leiden, the Netherlands, signed a PER.C6 research license agreement with Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, a division of Wyeth, of Madison, N.J. The license allows Wyeth to use the PER.C6 cell line for its preclinical adenoviral vector-based research and development programs. Crucell will receive an up-front payment and annual maintenance fees. Further financial details were not disclosed. Also, Crucell and Harvard Medical School said results of a joint study support vaccine vectors developed by Crucell. At the AIDS Vaccine 2004 conference in Lausanne, Switzerland, a researcher reported results concerning the potency of adenovirus serotypes 11 and 35 when combined with antigens of simian immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS-like symptoms in monkeys. The results showed both recombinant serotypes were effective in eliciting immune responses in mice, particularly when used together in a prime-boost vaccine regimen in the presence of pre-existing immunity to serotype 5.

• Cryptome Pharmaceuticals Ltd., of Melbourne, Australia, received an about $2 million AusIndustry R&D START grant to support development work on its lead candidate, the anti-coagulant CR001. The grant will fund up to half of the project testing the efficacy and safety of CR001, a naturally occurring peptide, as an alternative to current thrombosis drugs. The project is expected to be completed in early 2006.

• DeCode Genetics Inc., of Reykjavik, Iceland, said PricewaterhouseCoopers resigned as its independent registered public accounting firm. DeCode noted that PricewaterhouseCoopers, which had been its accounting firm since DeCode's 1996 formation, said there were no disagreements with the firm on any matter of accounting principles or practices, financial statement disclosure, or auditing scope or procedure.

• Evotec OAI AG, of Hamburg, Germany, said Bernard Questier will depart from his position as chief business officer to "pursue new entrepreneurial challenges." Evotec will not refill the position at the board level.

• Gambro AB, of Stockholm, Sweden, said its wholly owned subsidiary, Navigant Biotechnologies Inc., received $2 million in Department of Defense funding to continue development of its Mirasol pathogen-reduction technology for ensuring the safety of transfused blood. The funding will support an ongoing collaboration with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Md.

• Geneva Bioinformatics SA, of Geneva, released Phenyx, its software platform for the identification and characterization of proteins and peptides from PMF and tandem-MS mass spectrometry data. GeneBio also announced its collaboration with the bioinformatics computing facility Vital-IT, located at the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, in order to offer its Phenyx software platform to the scientific community.

• The German Ministry of Education and Research nominated eight researchers for its annual BioFuture prize, which awards selected research groups an average of €1.5 million. The prize aims to support younger research leaders who have not yet started firms or won tenured university positions.

• Imugene Ltd., of Sydney, Australia, said its adenoviral vector technology is being used in an experimental vaccine to protect chickens from the H5N1 strain of avian influenza. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia's national research agency, completed its construction of the vaccine, which is entering efficacy trials at CSIRO. The vaccine delivers a portion of flu genetic material, instead of the whole virus, making it possible to distinguish between vaccinated and infected birds. Initial results are expected within the next two months.

• Jerini AG, of Berlin, reported that its Phase II proof-of-concept study in hereditary angioedema study results support the clinical efficacy of Icatibant for the treatment of acute angioedema attacks. In 20 attacks, Icatibant was tested in the intravenous as well as the subcutaneous formulation. No difference in efficacy was reported between the treatment forms.

• The Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden, Dresden University of Technology, the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus and Rolf Möckel & Catgut GmbH began a joint research project to develop methods to treat bone injuries with cultivated autologous cell and tissue implants. The project will develop textile scaffolds to facilitate growth of autologous cells outside the body and then be implanted within the body and applied to the injured bone. The research is sponsored by the German Ministry of Education and Research through its InnoRegio program.

• LION bioscience AG, of Heidelberg, Germany, established two partnerships with cheminformatics companies - BioByte Corp. and ChemNavigator. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• MediGene AG, of Martinsried, Germany, named Ulrich Delvos a member of the management board responsible for research and development. Delvos previously was managing director of Aventis Behring GmbH, of Marburg, Germany, and simultaneously chief scientific officer of that company's U.S. branch.

• Merz Pharmaceuticals, of Frankfurt, Germany, began a cooperation with NascaCell IP GmbH, of Munich, Germany, to use NascaCell's aptamers to improve validation of different targets for products in Merz's pipeline. Aptamers are synthetic oligonucleotides that can bind to target proteins. Their small-molecule-like binding characteristics mean they typically show strong inhibition of protein functions. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Mologen AG, of Berlin, extended its joint venture in Guangzhou, China, to cover work on its dSLIM immunmodulator technology against acute infectious diseases. The company has added Jinan University's Biopharmaceutical Research and Development Center as a partner. The venture has attracted private Chinese financing, as well as public financing at the local and regional level. Mologen said that it would retain all know-how and patents resulting from the venture, while having the option to license its dSLIM technology in China, if the partners agree on contract terms.

• MorphoSys AG, of Munich, Germany, reported that Centocor Inc., of Malvern, Pa., exercised an option to retain a commercial license for HuCAL antibodies directed against an undisclosed Centocor target involved in inflammatory diseases. In exchange, MorphoSys received a license payment. Further financial terms were not disclosed. The cooperation between MorphoSys and Centocor was initiated in December 2000 and is aimed at the development of human therapeutic antibodies in a range of indications.

• Odyssey Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Pliva d.d., of Zagreb, Croatia, and Indevus Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Lexington, Mass., said clinical findings reported at the International Continence Society meeting in Paris showed that Sanctura (trospium chloride) reduced micturitions (toilet voids) and urge urinary incontinence episodes. The study also demonstrated an onset of action within one week of therapy. Data from a second trial showed that Sanctura was safe and well tolerated when administered to hepatically impaired patients. Additional findings demonstrated that patients with overactive bladder who were treated with the drug did not experience daytime sleepiness.

• PARI GmbH, of Starnberg, Germany, said European regulatory authorities named its inhaled cyclosporine product an orphan drug for use in lung transplant patients. Based on results from research with artificial lung models, PARI expects that when the product is administered with its eFlow membrane nebulizer, the desired therapeutic effect can be achieved with significantly lower doses of inhaled cyclosporine compared to oral therapies while simultaneously minimizing side effects. Cyclosporine is a calcineurine immunosuppressor.

• Peplin Biotech Ltd., of Brisbane, Australia, said clinical trials of its lead product, PEP005 Topical, began under the management of Allergan Inc., of Irvine, Calif. The first patients have been enrolled and treated in the Phase I/II program, which will be conducted in the U.S. and Australia. Under a license from Peplin, Allergan will evaluate PEP005 Topical as a treatment for actinic keratosis and the most common form of non-melanoma skin cancer, basal-cell carcinoma.

• PharmaBrand SA, of Quito, Ecuador, and Generex Biotechnology Corp., of Toronto, expanded their relationship to include an affiliate of the former. The companies have a joint venture agreement focused on the manufacture, marketing, distribution and sale of Oralin, Generex's oral insulin formulation, in Central and Latin America. Farmacid SA, an Ecuadorian pharmaceutical manufacturer, will serve as a filling operation for Oralin. In the process, Generex gained a 25 percent equity interest in the manufacturing facility.

• Protemix Corp. Ltd., of Auckland, New Zealand, said findings published in next month's issue of Diabetes show that six months of treatment with Laszarin resulted in a significant reduction toward normal heart size in diabetic patients with cardiac enlargement. The orally active small molecule removes excess copper from the body, and researchers showed that defective metabolism of copper in diabetics is implicated in the development of heart disease. A Phase II trial in Type II diabetics, as well as a study in preclinical models, showed that Laszarin caused increased urinary output of copper compared with treated controls. The researchers found reversed heart failure in preclinical models, and also found that the damaged hearts in the preclinical models and humans had substantively regenerated after treatment with Laszarin.

• Roboscreen GmBH, of Leipzig, Germany, licensed its prion protein-specific monoclonal antibody to Prionics AG, of Schlieren, Switzerland. Prionics will evaluate Roboscreen's antibody for use in diagnostic tests. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Roboscreen, which was founded in 2000, produces tools and test kits for prion diagnostics in the food sector and for quantitative molecular nucleic acids analysis in the human diagnostics sector.

• Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., of Jerusalem, and Active Biotech AB, of Lund, Sweden, said the Federal Trade Commission cleared a drug development agreement between them under Hart-Scott-Rodino Act procedures. The partners are working together on Active Biotech's laquinimod, an immunomodulatory compound with potential to be an oral treatment for multiple sclerosis. The deal was announced in June and could bring Active up to $92 million.

• Verta Ltd., of St. Petersburg, Russia, was awarded a grant from the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation to evaluate the therapeutic potential of SCV-07 in a hepatitis C virus proof-of-concept trial in Russia. Based on earlier studies showing SCV-07's ability to stimulate the immune system to fight disease, Verta will conduct the trial to explore the potential antiviral capabilities of SCV-07. Verta partner SciClone Pharmaceuticals Inc., of San Mateo, Calif., has acquired the worldwide rights, outside of Russia, to SCV-07 and is conducting preclinical studies with the intention of filing an investigational new drug application in the U.S.

• Xerion Pharmaceuticals AG, of Munich, Germany, lost Leodevico Ilag to Cryptome Pharmaceuticals, of Melbourne, Australia, where he will serve as chief scientific officer. Ilag is one of Xerion's founders, and he had worked in numerous management positions at the company. Xerion was founded in 1998 and focuses on cancer and immunological disorders.