Reports of Peptech's (ASX:PTD) impending takeover of tiny DNA-analysis company Genera Biosystems are premature, according the heads of both companies. [ + ]

Ventracor (ASX:VCR) has begun a global trial of its VentrAssist device, with the implant of a patient suffering congestive heart failure at Royal Perth Hospital. [ + ]

Australian Cancer Technology (ASX:ACU) has acquired the North American licence for a developmental pancreatic cancer drug from German company RESprotect. [ + ]

Sleep disorder specialist company ResMed (ASX:RMD) has promoted Kieran Gallahue from president and American chief operating officer to president of ResMed Global. [ + ]

Prof Garth Cooper's ambition to build his second -- and new Zealand's first -- billion-dollar biotech company appears to be on track, with his Auckland-based biopharma company Protemix announcing remarkable results from a Phase IIa clinical trial of an oral drug that reverse heart disease in type 2 diabetics. [ + ]

European venture-capital investment rose 10 per cent in the second quarter of this year over the first quarter to 967.3 million euros, driven by more funding for healthcare, including biopharmaceutical and medical-device companies [ + ]

An article published on September 8, headlined 'Nucleonics challenges Benitec-CSIRO RNAI patent' contained errors relating to the timing of the filing of key patents. [ + ]

Monash University researcher Jamie Rossjohn has been awarded the AUD$50,000 2004 Science Minister's Prize for Life Scientist of the Year for his work on protein structure and crystallography. [ + ]

Early results from Solbec Pharmaceutical's (ASX: SBP) Phase I clinical trial to test the safety and tolerability of its glycoalkaloid-based anti-cancer drug SBP002 in patients with advanced mesothelioma and melanoma have been unexpectedly good, with a number of the patients requesting to continue on the drug after the trial ended. [ + ]

Perth veterinary drug developer Chemeq Limited (ASX:CMQ) has announced it will issue a replacement prospectus after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission placed an interim stop order on the prospectus it issued late last month for a rights issue to raise $9.94 million. [ + ]

Select Vaccines' (ASX:SLT) licence partner Genelabs Diagnostics has provided the World Health Organisation with a "significant quantity" of the hepatitis E rapid diagnostic kits developed by Select, the company said today. [ + ]

The inventor of the cochlear implant, Prof Graeme Clark, will use the AUD$300,000 cheque from the 2004 Prime Minister's Science Prize he was awarded this week to establish a $6 million professorial chair in medical bionics at his Bionic Ear Institute in Melbourne. [ + ]

Amrad (ASX:AML) spin-out Avexa is ready to list following shareholder approval of the demerger and the granting of Federal Court approval of the scheme of arrangement. [ + ]

Pennsylvanian anti-viral therapeutics developer Nucleonics has opened a new front, on Australian soil, in its battle with Brisbane biotech Benitec (ASX:BLT) and Australia’s national research agency, CSIRO, over ownership of key patents for the revolutionary gene-silencing technology called RNA interference (RNAi). [ + ]

University of Melbourne spin-off Cryptopharma has been awarded a AUD$1.5 million R&D Start grant to support its respiratory therapeutics program. [ + ]