Alchemia (ASX:ACL) has confirmed it expects to take its first drug candidate, ACL16907, into clinical trials in the first half of 2006. [ + ]

Dutch company LMA International has become the first biosciences company to list on Singapore's stock exchange, raising S$248 million (AUD$194 million) through the an initial public offering by its Singapore unit, LMA International. [ + ]

Australian biotech venture capitalists GBS Venture Partners has invested in US-based therapeutic antibody company KaloBios Pharmaceuticals as part of a US$20 million series B financing round. [ + ]

UK biotech Domantis -- in which Sydney firm Peptech (ASX:PTD) is a 36 per cent investee -- has licensed the rights to domain antibodies for a specific but undisclosed autoimmune target to US biotech Tanox, best known for its asthma biological Xolair. [ + ]

Benitec (ASX:BLT) has granted a worldwide, non-exclusive commercial licence to French company genOway to develop transgenic rodents with Benitec's proprietary DNA-directed RNA-inferference technology (ddRNAi). [ + ]

Clinical Cell Culture (C3, ASX:CCE) has received CE Mark approval from European certification authority and notified body SGS for its Recell medical device, clearing the way for first sales of the product to plastic and cosmetic surgeons. [ + ]

Brisbane's Tissue Therapies (ASX:TIS) announced today that trials of its Vitro-Gro wound-healing technology at the Royal Children's Hospital show it not only accelerates the healing of serious burns, but leaves no scarring. [ + ]

Opponents of embryonic stem cell research have leaped to congratulate Griffith University scientists, who yesterday announced details of research in which differentiated cells were successfully grown from adult stem cells. [ + ]

A research team led by Prof Alan Mackay-Sim of Griffith University has successfully grown nerve, heart, liver, kidney and muscle cells from adult stem cells harvested from the olfactory mucosa. [ + ]

State premiers have apparent rebuffed Prime Minister John Howard's request for a 12-month extension to the current restriction on creating new embryonic stem cell lines, which is due to expire on April 5. [ + ]

At the suggestion of eminent UK neuroscience researcher Baroness Susan Greenfield, the South Australian Government is establishing an Australian Science Media Centre (AusSMC) in Adelaide to serve as a national portal for the media to obtain expert advice on science subjects. [ + ]

Melbourne's Antisense Therapeutics (ASX:ANP) is pressing ahead with development of its ATL1102 inhalant inflammation inhibitor for asthma, despite voluntarily suspending research into the drug's potential as a therapy for multiple sclerosis early this month. [ + ]

The US Patent and Trademark Office has granted Ventracor (ASX:VCR) and the company's research partners at the University of Technology Sydney a patent over the control system used in its VentrAssist heart device. [ + ]

Prof Garth Cooper, CEO of Auckland biopharma company Protemix, said he was "extremely pleased" this week at the news that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved the clinical use of diabetes drug he discovered as a young PhD at Oxford in 1986-7. [ + ]

Australian companies contemplating a listing on Nasdaq have a new set of regulatory concerns to consider, with the introduction of the controversial Sarbanes-Oxley legislation in the US. [ + ]