• Acambis plc, of Cambridge, UK, said it would receive $19 million from Baxter Healthcare Corp., of Deerfield, Ill., after both parties agreed to terminate a manufacturing agreement - $9 million is payable immediately, while two $5 million payments are payable January 2005 and 2006. Under the December 2000 agreement, Acambis was to manufacture components of bacterial vaccines at its Canton, UK, facility, but last year, Baxter halted certain bacterial vaccine projects.

• Altana AG, of Bad Homburg, Germany, said Phase III data show that once-daily treatment with Alvesco (ciclesonide) in mild to moderate asthma patients has no effect on normal adrenal function, as demonstrated by measurements of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Alvesco, an inhaled corticosteroid, works by reducing inflammation in the lungs and airways. The two Phase III trials included patients 12 years and older receiving three different doses of ciclesonide, or placebo, once daily for 12 weeks.

• Ark Therapeutics Group plc, of London, agreed to supply EG005 on compassionate grounds to patients completing the one-year, open-label stage of its Phase II trial in lipodystrophy. The company said it was encouraged by requests to supply EG005 beyond the trial. Lipodystrophy occurs in HIV-positive patients who are receiving antiretroviral therapy, and is characterized by a loss of body fat on the face and limbs and its redistribution to the abdomen and back.

• Arysta LifeScience Corp., of Tokyo, named Christopher Richards president and CEO. John Hagaman, who has been serving as interim CEO, was appointed chairman. An agrochemical company, Arysta provides crop protection and life science products.

• Australian Cancer Technology Ltd., of Sydney, signed an agreement to acquire Galenica Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Birmingham, Ala., for $5 million. The company is making the acquisition through its U.S. subsidiary, Adjuvantys Inc. Australian Cancer will issue about 2 million ordinary shares at 48 cents per share and pay $350,000 in cash upon closing. An additional $3 million would be paid within a year in stock or cash, and a final $1 million payment would be made within two years. Galenica's technology comprises three families of semi-synthetic immune enhancers used to stimulate the immune system. Galenica also will bring with it a licensing agreement with New York-based Pfizer Animal Health for a series of animal vaccines in development.

• CellFactors plc, of Cambridge, UK, said the U.S. Patent Office upheld its patent covering a method of producing and immortalizing human neural cell lines. The patent also covers cells and cell lines produced by that method, including cells engineered to contain a genetic safety switch. The outcome follows the grant of the equivalent European patent earlier this year, also after challenge by a third party.

• Cenix BioScience GmbH, of Dresden, Germany, moved all of its operations into new facilities within that city's recently completed BioInnovation Center. Cenix offers research services combining genome-driven, high-throughput applications of RNA interference with read-out methodologies in human cells, Drosophila and C. elegans for drug discovery.

• Codon AG, of Berlin, reported positive results in a second animal study of the matrix- and membrane-free use of the company's cultured cartilage product, Chondrosphere. The company said the evaluation showed the feasibility of cartilage regeneration in osteoarthritic joints and minimally invasive therapies for cartilage defects. The company believes that its product will reduce surgery time by two-thirds and shorten rehabilitation afterward.

• CXR Biosciences Ltd., of Dundee, Scotland; the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland; and Geron Corp., of Menlo Park, Calif., entered a collaboration to develop and commercialize human embryonic stem cell (hESC)-derived hepatocytes for use in in vitro assays of drug metabolism and toxicity. Geron will supply its existing hES cell lines, intellectual property and experience in the field, as well as its issued patents for hepatocytes derived from hESCs and their use in drug screening. The institute will use its experience in hESC culture and gene reporter assays to produce hESC-derived hepatocytes under funding from Geron. CXR will contribute its experience in hepatocyte cell culture, as well as its metabolic and reporter construct-based assays for hepatocyte function. Geron and CXR will commercialize any resulting products, though specific financial terms were not disclosed.

• Evotec OAI AG, of Hamburg, Germany, formed a collaboration with Nuvios Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., to screen small-molecule compounds for potential drugs to treat and prevent osteoporosis. Evotec will apply its ultra-high-throughput screening, including confocal fluorescence and other technologies, for the identification of biologically active compounds to Nuvios assays for profiling the effects of compounds on osteoclast and osteoblast growth and differentiation.

• GeneMedix plc, of Newmarket, UK, was granted its first international patent on a fast-acting monomeric form of insulin discovered by scientists at the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology. The company intends to develop the analogue through completion of Phase I and then look for a partner. GeneMedix has an agreement to commercialize research from the institute.

• GenOway SA, of Lyon, France, entered an agreement to generate conditional knockout and knock-in rat models with Altana AG, of Bad Homburg, Germany. Terms were not disclosed. GenOway, which creates the genetically modified rats using its nuclear transfer technology, also received €1 million in French government funding for its Eureka-labeled program for developing rats.

• Hanover Medical School scientists in Germany reported positive results from research aimed at learning how to keep the length of telomeres in cloned embryos normal. The team, led by Heiner Niemann, found a telomerase-dependent telomere length-resetting event between the morula and blastocyst embryonic stages. Although the experiments did not establish the precise mechanics of telomere length in the early stages of embryo development, they did give a clearer understanding of when key changes occur, the scientists said. The results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in the U.S.

• Imperial College Innovations Ltd., a technology transfer company of Imperial College London, entered a license agreement with Seattle Genetics Inc., of Bothell, Wash., for exclusive rights to a monoclonal antibody targeting a cell-surface, tumor-associated antigen. Seattle Genetics plans to evaluate the therapeutic potential of the antibody against a variety of cancers, including hematologic malignancies and solid tumors, such as breast, colon and bladder cancer. Seattle Genetics has development, manufacturing and worldwide commercialization rights to products developed under the license agreement. Imperial College Innovations will receive an up-front fee, milestone payments and potential royalties. Separately, Imperial College Innovations entered a license agreement with CytRx Corp., of Los Angeles, for exclusive rights to Imperial's intellectual property covering a drug screening method using Rip140. Imperial College Innovations will receive a license fee, and could receive milestone payments, plus royalties on net sales. Rip140 is a nuclear hormone co-repressor that regulates fat accumulation.

• Inpharmatica Ltd., of London, signed a discovery collaboration agreement with Procter and Gamble Pharmaceuticals Inc. (P&GP), a subsidiary of The Procter & Gamble Co., of Cincinnati. P&GP will fund a research program at Inpharmatica and pay additional license fees to use discoveries arising from the collaboration. Inpharmatica's flagship discovery platform, PharmaCarta, will play a key role in the collaboration. The collaboration goal will be to develop robust computational structure models and identify chemotypes for families of human G protein-coupled receptors.

• MorphoSys AG, of Martinsried, Germany, entered a collaboration with Novartis AG, of Basel, Switzerland, to discover and develop antibody-based biopharmaceuticals as therapeutic agents. During the three-year term of the agreement, which may be extended to five years, Novartis will fund internal research at MorphoSys that will generate and optimize HuCAL Gold antibodies against targets identified by Novartis. Also, Novartis will have access to the current MorphoSys HuCAL Gold library at two of its sites. Novartis will be MorphoSys' first partner to receive a nonexclusive option on internalization of the entire MorphoSys technology platform, which would trigger an additional payment to MorphoSys. Novartis will invest about €9 million in MorphoSys' non-interest-bearing convertible bonds that can be converted into 490,133 common shares. MorphoSys, which will receive more than $30 million in research and development funding and technology license fees over the first three years, stands to receive technology license payments, research and developmental milestones, as well as royalties on marketed antibody products.

• MWG Biotech AG, of Ebersberg, Germany, will open a production subsidiary June 1 in Bangalore, India, to supply the Asia Pacific region with its product and services line. Initially, MWG Biotech PVT Ltd. will produce the parent company's oligonucleotides, using methods developed in Germany and the U.S. The company plans to offer services from its genomic information business and genomic diagnosis business units.

• Norwood Abbey Ltd., of Melbourne, Australia, intends to appoint Rolf Stahel nonexecutive chairman once the company's shares are admitted to the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange. Stahel is the former chief executive of Shire Pharmaceuticals Group plc, of Basingstoke, UK. Norwood's immunology business is focused on the development and commercialization of immunology-related technologies that have been developed around the use of GnRH analogues to boost the immune system.

• Octapharma AG, of Lachen, Switzerland, received FDA approval to market Octagam, a liquid, ready-to-use, solvent/detergent-treated immunoglobulin intravenous product that has been on the market in Europe for more than 10 years. Octagam is indicated to treat primary immunodeficiency diseases. Octapharma USA Inc. will distribute it in the U.S. The approval was based partly on a U.S. study of 46 patients, with the observed rate of serious infections as the primary efficacy endpoint.

• Pharmagene plc, of Royston, UK, presented data from three Phase I studies of PGN0052, a bronchodilator, at the 100th annual American Thoracic Society conference in Orlando, Fla. Following positive results in volunteers and asthma patients, the company has started a Phase IIa study in cystic fibrosis.

• Piramed Ltd., of Slough, UK, entered a research collaboration with the Institute of Cancer Research to develop drugs targeting PI3 kinase, a signal transduction enzyme in cancer cells. The research, to be conducted at Piramed and the institute in Surrey, UK, is hoped to accelerate the progression of drug leads toward the clinic. Piramed already has advanced preclinical research on two series of compounds targeting PI3 kinase, and the collaboration is to undertake pharmacokinetic and efficacy studies in disease models. At the same time, the Institute received a grant from Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure for the preclinical evaluation of drug candidates arising from their collaboration for glioma.

• Protherics plc, of Runcorn, UK, began recruiting patients for a Phase I study of NQ02 in the treatment of solid tumors in 40 patients. NQ02 consists of the prodrug CB1954 in combination with an enzyme co-substrate EP-0152R, a non-protein organic molecule. NQ02 targets an enzyme that is overexpressed in certain types of solid tumors, but is normally latent. Protherics discovered that EP-0152R activates the enzyme, which then converts CB1954 to its cytotoxic form.

• ReGen Therapeutics plc, of London, released further data from studies to determine the mode of action of Colostrinin, an Alzheimer's disease treatment originally derived from ovine colostrum. One in vitro study showed the product can prevent the aggregation of beta-amyloid protein in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. A second study showed it could promote the differentiation of primary cells into neuronal cells. The company is planning research to replicate the findings in animal models.

• Scancell Ltd., of Nottingham, UK, agreed to a license with Cancer Research Technology Ltd., of London, for the development and commercialization of cancer vaccines against two targets that are overexpressed in solid tumors. The first, Tie-2, is overexpressed on tumor vasculature; the second, CD55, is overexpressed by tumors to protect them from immune attack. Scancell will use its ImmunoBody technology to develop the vaccines.

• Sinovac Biotech Ltd., of Beijing, began Phase I trials of its vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome at a hospital in that city. The company said it would release more details in the future. Also, Sinovac received funding support from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., for a severe acute respiratory syndrome vaccine project. Sinovac's Chinese partners include the National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention, the China Institute for Animal Research and the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

• SkyePharma plc, of London, and Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Chadds Ford, Pa., said the FDA approved the new drug application for DepoDur to treat pain following major surgery. DepoDur, formerly called DepoMorphine, is a single-dose, sustained-release, injectable formulation of morphine. The clinical trial program for DepoDur involved more than 1,000 patients in four different pain models and demonstrated the potential to improve post-operative pain. Endo expects to launch the product by the end of this year. SkyePharma submitted the NDA last July.

• Vernalis plc, of Winnersh, UK, completed the reacquisition of the North American rights to its migraine treatment, frovatriptan, from Elan Corp. plc, of Dublin, Ireland. Vernalis is paying Elan $50 million over the next 21 months for the product, which had North American sales of $37.5 million in 2003.