Shares of Advaxis Inc. plunged 36.6 percent Wednesday after the North Brunswick, N.J.-based company revealed that the FDA had denied its orphan drug designation application for ADXS11-01 (formerly Lovaxin-C) as an immunotherapy for invasive cervical cancer. (BioWorld Today)

If all goes according to plan, Exelixis Inc. could bank more than $1 billion under a new licensing and discovery deal with Sanofi-Aventis Group for phosphoinositide-3 kinase (PI3K) inhibitors targeting cancer. (BioWorld Today)

Antibiotic-resistant infections in cancer patients have become a growing concern over the past five years, with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) being the most common in those receiving chemotherapy, according to a new survey sponsored by Amgen Inc. and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which have teamed in a three-year initiative to tackle the problem. (BioWorld Today)

Patrick Mahaffy and his former management team from Pharmion Corp., which was acquired last year for $2.9 billion by Celgene Corp., proved to be a safe bet for their early venture capitalist investors. Indeed, the VCs who had backed Pharmion when it was founded in 2000 returned to support Mahaffy again - this time with a substantial start-up package of $145 million. (BioWorld Today)