Genzyme Corp.'s Phase III win with Mozobil (plerixafor) for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma vindicates those who cheered the high-priced buyout in a bidding war for AnorMED Inc., but the market for the CXCR4 chemokine antagonist might not be huge, and investors still are waiting for results of the trial in multiple myeloma, due in the next few weeks.(BioWorld Today)

Idenix Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s FDA-ordered clinical hold on the nucleoside inhibitor valopicitabine for hepatitis C virus comes just a month after encouraging Phase II data, and probably means death for the drug also known as NM283, thanks to gastrointestinal side effects that the agency found serious enough to stop development. (BioWorld Today)

"GERD" might sound like the nickname of the nice German lady down the block who bakes Pfeffernusse cookies at Christmas, but physicians, biotech firms and a large number of unhappy patients know GERD as the acronym for gastroesophageal reflux disease, or acid reflux, an estimated $14 billion market. (BioWorld Financial Watch)

Depomed Inc. noted a strangely high and persistent placebo effect in the Phase III blowup of its postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) pain tablet Gabapentin GR, but the explanation failed to appease investors, and Wall Street shaved 59.4 percent off the value of the stock (NASDAQ:DEPO), which closed Tuesday at $2, down $2.93. (BioWorld Today)

Deep-pocketed big pharma plighted its figurative troth with the last high-profile player in RNA interference, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc., in a non-exclusive licensing deal that could mean as much as $1 billion from Roche Holding AG - with $331 million up front that includes an equity investment of $42.5 million, for less than 5 percent of Alnylam's outstanding shares. (BioWorld Today)

Casting a wide clinical net has its drawbacks - cost, mainly - and its advantages, such as better chances of finding efficacy. But even the positive point isn't always entirely so, as Cytokinetics Inc. found out late last month, when its good/bad news regarding ispinesib, its kinesin spindle protein (KSP) inhibitor for cancer. (BioWorld Financial Watch)