News

The US National Institutes of Health is requesting comments on draft guidelines that will inform the use of embryonic stem cells in medical research. Comments are requested by 26 May 2009 to the NIH.

European health authorities have met with vaccine manufacturers to discuss a strategy for making vaccines available to the public should a flu pandemic be declared by the World Health Organisation.

The chief executive officer and co-founder of MediGene AG, Peter Heinrich, has resigned from the company with immediate effect. He is being replaced by Frank Mathias who joined the German company on 1 April 2008.

Vernalis Plc of the UK announced plans to raise £22.1 million in a fully underwritten share issue and separate plans for a 20-1 reverse split of its outstanding shares.

Oxford BioMedica Plc is taking back the rights to its therapeutic vaccine for renal cancer from sanofi-aventis. At the same time, it is entering into a new agreement with the French company to develop gene-based treatments for four eye diseases.

MorphoSys AG, the German antibody producer, announced a rise in revenue and profits in the first 2009 quarter and reconfirmed its projections for the year as a whole.

The French state agency, Oseo Innovation, has awarded €1.8 million to a privately-held molecular diagnostics company in Nantes to support a biomarker project aimed at predicting rejections of kidney transplants.

Imperial Innovations Group Plc, reported a profit of £1.3 million for the half year ended 31 January 2009 compared with a year-earlier loss of £2.2 million. This was despite a fall in the value of its quoted company holdings.

ProtAffin AG of Austria has raised €14.1 million in a Series B round which will be used to complete pre-clinical development and Phase 1 testing of a new anti-inflammatory compound. The round was co-led by Atlas Venture and SR One Ltd.

Merck & Co has become the latest big pharmaceutical company to announce plans to source a significant part of its biomedical research programmes from outside the company.