About seven months after closing its Phase III study with apricitabine (ATC) for HIV ahead of schedule, Avexa Ltd., quit development of the nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor entirely, saying the final would-be partner has declined to submit a term sheet and staff is being reduced as the company considers options. (BioWorld Today)

CHICAGO - A decade ago, pharma firms maintained "an aloof attitude" toward struggling biotechs, condescending to make deals only when the aims of the deep-pocketed savior meshed clearly and perfectly with an early stage innovator, noted Steve Kuemmerle, director of Abbott Biotech Ventures. "Now, we all kind of think we're in the same boat," he said.

CHICAGO - "The most dangerous person in the world is a CEO who knows how to use PowerPoint," Douglas MacDougall, president of MacDougall Biomedical Communications, told a roomful of workshop attendees at the Biotechnology Industry Organization's international convention. (BioWorld Today - 2010 BIO)

Ophthotech Corp.'s kickoff last week of the Phase II trial with the aptamer E10030 as a combination therapy to be used with Lucentis drew still more attention to wet (neovascular) age-related macular degeneration, but quietly creeping up on the dreaded, more-common dry (atrophic) form of AMD is start-up ReVision Therapeutics Inc. with fenretinide, better known as a would-be cancer therapy.