Just when the market slowdown and summer's dog days had cast a torpor over the land, Pfizer Inc. sent a blast of cooling news across the pharmaceutical landscape, disclosing that it signed an agreement to buy Pharmacia Corp. in a $60 billion stock swap. (BioWorld Today)

Although less often in the headlines during recent years, quietly murderous HIV has gone about its dark business worldwide with terrible efficiency. AIDS has killed 20 million people since beginning that sinister march across the earth, and another 40 million are infected with the virus. (BioWorld Financial Watch)

AGY Therapeutics Inc. netted $31.3 million in a Series C financing for its work with small molecules against ischemic stroke and Alzheimer's disease, predicting it will have a product ready for the clinic "toward the second half of next year," said Karoly Nikolich, founder and CEO. (BioWorld Today)

Quark Biotech Inc. paid an undisclosed sum for the microarray facilities and personnel of Incyte Genomics Inc., thereby beefing the former's profiling and chemical screening capabilities and completing another piece of the latter's restructuring.

During the 1960s, labels of any kind were abhorred by many for the way they so fixedly identified objects and people, limiting them to a static condition that idealistic New Agers whose cultural influence spread far in that era could hardly abide. (BioWorld Financial Watch)

You don't need much, but you better have some or else. The subject is enzymes, replacement therapy for which has been in the forefront in June, with big player Genzyme General Corp. and partner BioMarin Pharmaceuticals Inc. making headlines (good news), as well as competitor Oxford GlycoSciences plc (bad news). (BioWorld Financial Watch)

Almost a year after in-licensing the P-glycoprotein membrane inhibitor tariquidar from Xenova Group plc, QLT Inc. said it is starting two Phase III trials to explore the drug's use as an adjunct with first-line chemotherapy in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). (BioWorld Today)

The world found out Wednesday who's been wooing Paris-based Genset SA, and it turned out to be Serono SA, which made a cash offer to buy Genset for €107.4 million. (BioWorld Today)