MAP Pharmaceuticals Inc. said that its potential treatment for asthma in children did not improve symptoms any better than placebo in a Phase III study of unit dose budesonide (UDB), leaving the program in limbo for now and causing its shares to fall more than 75 percent. (BioWorld Today)

Recent headlines show the bad news has been mounting for months as biotech firms, struggling to raise cash, announced layoffs, corporate restructurings and bankruptcy filings.

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. is likely to have a big enough pot of cash to launch telaprevir for hepatitis C virus and to advance a potential treatment for cystic fibrosis, now that it has agreed to sell 10 million new shares. (BioWorld Today)

Novelos Therapeutics Inc. has signed a $95 million deal with Mundipharma International Corp. Ltd. to market a cancer drug in Europe and Japan, with $10 million of that paid up front by Purdue Pharma LP, an independent company associated with the UK firm. (BioWorld International)