On the brink of the Labor Day holiday, Genelabs Technologies Inc. saw gratifying results from the sometimes-uphill labor on behalf of its lupus drug, Prestara (prasterone), as the company's stock more than doubled on news of an approvable letter from the FDA. (Bioworld Today)

Talk to enough buy-side analysts and industry boosters, and you're likely to come away with a strangely weary feeling. It's a feeling behind which lies suspicion and skepticism, a grave doubt about even the possibility of optimism. (Bioworld Financial Watch)

When flailing giant Elan Corp. plc made known its plan to restructure at the end of last month, tremors were felt worldwide. The Securities and Exchange Commission had raised questions about off-balance-sheet accounting procedures related to Elan's joint ventures, of which the company has no less than 55, and there had been shareholder lawsuits along with the more ordinary kind of problems, such as the suspension of clinical dosing of the Alzheimer's drug partnered with Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories. (BioWorld Financial Watch)

In the scandal-ridden business world - where allegations of accounting manipulations and insider trading have been flying like chopped food out of an untopped Martha Stewart food processor - biotechnology, like every other sector, has been spattered. (BioWorld Financial Watch)

If the FDA's delay of approval for Corixa Corp.'s lead cancer product, Bexxar (tositumomab, iodine-131), is doing harm regarding investors, you wouldn't know it from the company's news Monday that it entered a purchase agreement to raise about $45 million in a private placement. (BioWorld Today)