Industry News
Peptech, Agenix to merge
Sydney-based biotech Peptech (ASX:PTD) and Brisbane-based Agenix (ASX:AGX) have revealed plans to merge, creating one of Australia's largest biotechnology companies with a market capitalisation of AUD$400 million. [ + ]
BIO 2004: Better believe it -- credibility rules
Building your credibility and getting past the introductory meeting are the two goals biotech companies going to BIO should keep in mind, according to US-based biotech communications specialist Doug MacDougall. [ + ]
Big pharma, CRCs can work together: AstraZeneca czar
The thing AstraZeneca finds hardest about its relationship with the Cooperative Research Centre for Chronic Inflammatory Diseases is coping with incompatible timezones. [ + ]
Austin spin-off XenoTrans earns Geron backing
US biotechnology company Geron has taken a 25 per cent equity position in Austin Research Institute spin-off XenoTrans, in return for granting the company a non-exclusive licence to use Geron's nuclear transfer technology to produce transgenic pigs for xenotransplantation, and a share in future revenues. [ + ]
Virax begins prostate cancer vaccine trial
Melbourne immunotherapy developer Virax Holdings (ASX:VHL) has begun a pre-clinical trial of its novel candidate vaccine for late-stage prostate cancer at the Royal Adelaide Hospital Cancer Centre. [ + ]
Prana to raise $27m from US investors
Prana Biotechnology (ASX:PBT) has obtained agreements to raise US$20 million (AUD$27 million) from US institutional and professional investors through the sale of 3 million ADRs at US$5 per ADR, subject to shareholder approval. [ + ]
GroPep posts fourth consecutive positive quarter
Adelaide biopharma GroPep (ASX:GRO) today announced its fourth consecutive quarter of positive operating and net cash flow. [ + ]
CSIRO, Bayer in RNAi deal
International agbiotech company Bayer CropScience has acquired a licence from CSIRO to develop new crops using the patented RNA interference (RNAi) gene-silencing technology developed by CSIRO Plant Industry researchers. [ + ]
AGT pipeline boosted in merger with US firm
AGT Biosciences (ASX:AGT) has merged with US company ChemGenex Therapeutics to create a genomics-driven pharmaceutical company with two products in Phase II clinical trials. [ + ]
Test to detect aquatic pests
CSIRO marine scientists have developed a technique that gives hope in the battle to stop the spread of aquatic pests.
[ + ]WEHI head gets pontifical appointment
Prof Suzanne Cory, director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, has been appointed a member of the Pope’s scientific advisory council, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. [ + ]
Obesity drug alters brain, says scientist
A British scientist has warned that Sanofi-Synthelabo's experimental obesity drug Acomplia could alter the way people think. [ + ]
Singapore's Cordlife sets up CyGenics, plans Australian capital raising
Singapore-based Cordlife has created a holding company, CyGenics, which will be based in Melbourne, and revealed plans to raise up to $20 million in funding. [ + ]
Queensland's Xenome files IND for painkiller
Xenome -- 25 per cent owned by Medica Holdings (ASX:MCA) -- has filed an investigational new drug (IND) application with the US Food and Drug Administration for its Xen2174 cancer painkiller, which is derived from cone shell venom. [ + ]
Biotechs, big pharma benefit as first P3 grants awarded
The federal government has today ladled out just under 60 per cent of the funding for its five-year $150 million Pharmaceutical Partnerships Program -- known as P3 -- giving 11 pharmaceutical and biotech companies a cash boost to fund drug development. [ + ]
