After receiving tidings of comfort and joy on Christmas Eve, Sydney-based biotech Peptech (ASX:PTD) has established a solid strategic position for the endgame of its corporate chess match with the two leading players in the rheumatoid arthritis antibody therapy business. [ + ]

In the middle of its AUD$10 million float, Melbourne pharmaceutical development company BioDiem has been buoyed by news that the US Food and Drug Administration has allocated $US50 million to boost production of influenza vaccines, which are in chronically short supply in North America. [ + ]

Meditech Research (ASX:MTR) has ended the year with the achievement of a major milestone, entering into an agreement with Danish biotechnology company Novozymes. [ + ]

Local biotechs Alchemia and Rockeby Biomed are set to list on the ASX next week after successfully raising $21 million and $4 million, respectively, in oversubscribed IPOs. [ + ]

Auckland-based biotech Genesis Research and Development Corporation has lopped its plant sciences branch and planted it in the market as a fully-owned but independently managed scion, AgriGenesis BioSciences. [ + ]

Almost exactly a year after the federal government named the National Stem Cell Centre (NSCC) as Australia's biotechnology centre of excellence, the first round of funding has been distributed to researchers at six institutions across Australia. [ + ]

CSL (ASX:CSL), which last week became the world's largest supplier of blood plasma products after its purchase of Aventis Behring, now aims to maximise its return from those products by developing a therapy for stroke. [ + ]

The Victorian College of Pharmacy's AUD$17 million Centre for Drug Candidate Optimisation has been officially opened in Parkville. [ + ]

Medica Holdings (ASX:MCA) subsidiary Cytopia says it is firmly on the path to clinical trials with its anti-cancer molecule, after getting positive results from animal studies. [ + ]

Cortical, a spin-out from Monash University in Melbourne, has closed a deal worth up to AUD$1 million with US biotech Genzyme to collaborate on the development of oral drugs for inflammatory diseases based on Cortical's small molecule antagonists of the cytokine macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF). [ + ]

Sufferers of type-two diabetes may soon be able to inhale rather than inject their insulin thanks to Melbourne researchers who have re-engineered the insulin molecule.

A Phase II clinical study under way in Melbourne has confirmed the promise of metal-chelating agents for treating -- and perhaps even preventing -- the devastating neurogenerative disorder Alzheimer's disease. [ + ]

Medical Developments International (ASX:MVP) floated on the ASX on Monday at AUD$0.495 -- almost double its IPO placement price of $0.25. [ + ]

Western Australian company CollTech is aiming to raise up to AUD$5 million in its IPO to build a collagen extraction and purification facility, based on its novel and proprietary method for extracting the protein from sheep skins. [ + ]

AusBiotech members have elected Johnson & Johnson Research managing director Susan Pond, venture capitalist Leigh Farrell and former Amrad managing director Sandra Webb as corporate directors to its board, after a tight race between nine candidates. Western Australian Biomedical Research Institute director Simon Carroll was also re-elected as an institutional director. [ + ]