News

Oxford BioMedica Plc has stopped administering vaccinations to patients in a Phase 3 trial of its lead cancer product, TroVax, after an independent data safety monitoring board declared that the study would not meet its primary endpoint of overall survival in renal cancer. The study will be completed in order to collect follow-up data on patients. But the trial data alone will not be sufficient to support an application for a marketing authorisation in renal cancer, the company said on 11 July 2008.

Solvay Pharmaceuticals SA said that it expects to complete its takeover of Innogenetics NV in the second half of 2008 after beating off a rival bid for the Belgian diagnostics company from Gen-Probe Inc of San Diego, California.

The UK drug development company, Modern Biosciences, has entered into an exclusive agreement with the University of Bradford, also of the UK, to develop a vascular disrupting agent for cancer. Financial terms were not disclosed.

SkyePharma Plc said it was unable to refinance its convertibles bonds, which can be called for early redemption over the next two years. The collapse of talks with shareholders, potential investors and bondholders led to a 21.5% decline in its share price to 4.30 pence.

York Pharma Plc, a specialist dermatology company listed on London’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM), said it has purchased two wound-care products from Belgium’s Solvay Pharmaceuticals BV in a transaction that should enable York Pharma to become self-financing over a 12-month span but which involves expensive and dilutive financing arrangements.

The AIM-listed drug development company, ImmuPharma Plc, has raised £1.5 million, net of expenses, in a share placement with institutional investors that will enable it to finance early clinical development of its candidate cancer drug, IPP-204106.

Shire Plc, the British specialty pharmaceutical company, has made an agreed bid to acquire all of the Frankfurt-listed shares of Jerini Ag for €328 million. In a conference call on 3 July 2008, Shire’s chief executive, Angus Russell, said the acquisition will add Jerini’s hereditary angioedema (HAE) product, Firazyr (icatibant acetate), to its portfolio of drugs for symptomatic rare disorders administered by specialist physicians. Firazyr was given a positive opinion by the European Medicine Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use in April 2008 and is awaiting final approval by the European Commission.

The Danish vaccine producer, Bavarian Nordic A/S, has announced a lawsuit against Oxford BioMedica of the UK alleging infringement of three of its US patents for a viral vector used in Bavarian Nordic’s smallpox vaccine.

A famine-breaking initial public offering (IPO) of the French diagnostic company, Ipsogen SA, has held up well despite the general weakness of stock markets.

The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) has said that new or strengthened warnings should be included in the product information for three groups of marketed pharmaceutical products: epoetin-containing medicines, ergot-derived dopamine agonists and etoricoxib-containing medicines.