Sigma-Aldrich has a new identity for its fine chemicals business, SAFC. SAFC will have over 650 of Sigma-Aldrich's 6000 employees dedicated to its success and will embrace the company's recent acquisitions, Ultrafine and Tetrionics.

Melbourne pharma Phosphagenics (ASX:POH) has demonstrated that its patented TPM-01 transdermal delivery system can administer morphine safely and efficiently through the skin, to maintain therapeutic levels of the drug in the serum over a period of at least 48 hours. [ + ]

International proteomics technology and research company Proteome Systems (ASX:PSX) has signed a agreement with life-science research systems company Agilent Technologies (NYSE: A) to develop and market an integrated technology package for glycomics, the analysis of glycosylated proteins. [ + ]

After a year scouting for its first deal, private Brisbane biotech Implicit Biosciences is hoping to raise a phoenix from the ashes of a dead US company, Cytran, which went bankrupt in 2002 after the Phase III failure of its lead candidate IM862. [ + ]

Queensland's Beattie Government has announced AUD$473 million in new funding for the second phase of its Smart State Strategy. [ + ]

Heart surgeons who perform coronary bypass operations or aorta grafts face a dilemma: they need to use anti-clotting agents to prevent potentially lethal post-surgical clots, but standard blood-thinning drugs like aspirin can cause bleeding from graft joins - or from weakened blood vessels in the brain. [ + ]

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has committed $7m in state funding to build a new scale-up manufacturing facility for pharma and biotech companies to produce experimental drugs for pre-clinical and clinical trials. [ + ]

In the nick of time -- in terms of human history, anyway -- the National Geographic Society and IBM have announced a five year project that will use DNA markers to retrace the epic colonisation of Earth by modern human beings. [ + ]

Melbourne drug developer Phosphagenics (ASX:POH) has pulled a dozen-odd plump but otherwise healthy rabbits out of the hat after completing the first arm of a three-armed preclinical study of its anti-atherosclerosis drug candidate APA-01. [ + ]

Premier Peter Beattie has announced Queensland will commit $7 million towards a scale-up manufacturing facility to make drugs for pre-clinical and clinical trials. He said the funding would be used to encourage international and national investment. [ + ]

Melbourne is to be home to the world's first centre for medical bionics and hearing science, the brainchild of bionic-ear inventor Prof Graeme Clark. [ + ]

Agenix (OTC: AGXLY, ASX: AGX) subsidiary, Agen Biomedical has signed an agreement with diagnostics company Axis-Shield under which Axis-Shield will produce a new laboratory assay for deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. The Axis-Shield assay will use Agen's 3B6 D-dimer antibody, and will be incorporated into Abbott Laboratories' mmunodiagnostic analyser, AxSYM. [ + ]

Perth biotech Solbec Pharmaceuticals (ASX:SBP) has followed in the footsteps of small resources companies in setting up a $5 million facility known as a standby equity distribution agreement through US-based investment fund, Cornell Capital Partners. [ + ]

Mark Crowell -- a leading US technology-transfer expert -- has a message for Australian universities wanting to make money out of research: it is vital that the public sector continue funding good, basic science to drive the knowledge economy. [ + ]

A tissue engineering centre, a tumour tissue banking facility and a biopharmaceutical formulation facility are three of 17 projects that will share a total of $57 million in major infrastructure grants, announced today by the Victorian government. [ + ]