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Indian biotechnology company Intas Biopharmaceuticals (IBPL, Ahmedabad, Gujarat) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the government of Gujarat for setting up a separate manufacturing facility for Monoclonal Antibodies (MAbs).

AmVac AG (Zug, Switzerland) has formed a collaboration with the National Health Research Institutes in Taiwan to develop a nasal spray vaccine against the H5N1 avian influenza.

The US Food and Drug Administration has approved Gleevec (imatinib mesylate) for a new indication?keeping cancer from growing in patients following surgical removal of a gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST).

Novozymes (Bagsvaerd, Denmark) has entered into a global licensing and collaboration agreement with Sanofi-Aventis (Paris, France) for the development and marketing of a new potential antibiotic.

Intercell AG (Vienna, Austria) has begun the Phase 2 clinical trial of the company's vaccine candidate to prevent infections with the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Celvapan, the first cell culture-based H5N1 (avian flu) pandemic vaccine, has moved closer to approval in the European Union. On December 18, the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMEA), issued a positive opinion, recommending market authorization for the vaccine, made by Baxter International, Inc. (Deerfield, IL).

AFFiRiS (Vienna, Austria) has initiated pre-clinical development of a Parkinson's vaccine. The vaccine, known as PD01, can be used to target a specific protein that is closely associated with the causes of this degenerative neurological disease.

PPD, Inc. (Wilmington, NC) has entered into a strategic collaboration with Merck & Co., Inc. (Whitehouse Station, NJ), involving vaccine testing and assay development.

On January 20, FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenback, MD, will step down as commissioner and Frank Torti, MD, will take over as acting commissioner.

MannKind Corporation (Valencia, CA) has purchased an option to license plant-produced recombinant human insulin from SemBioSys Genetics Inc. (Calgary, Canada) for use primarily in MannKind's ultra-rapid acting insulin, Afresa.

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) opened HHS/FDA offices in Costa Rica on January 7. The HHS/FDA presence in the region will allow the countries to work closely together. The office in Costa Rica is the first in a series in Latin America, which will eventually include an HHS/FDA presence in South America and Mexico later in 2009.

The US Food and Drug Administration has issued a new draft guidance document on process validation. This much-awaited revision of the 1987 guidance of the same name has been in the works for at least three years, and is being welcomed by industry experts.

Although no official announcement has been made, former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle is most likely slated to head the Obama administration’s efforts to enact health reform legislation as the new secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

AstraZeneca has announced the divestment of the AstraZeneca Biotech Laboratory (ABL) in Södertälje, Sweden, to Recipharm AB of Sweden, a contract development and manufacturing organization.

Merck Serono (Darmstadt, Germany) has begun expansion of the Merck Serono Biotech Center (MSBC), its production site in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland.

In the Obama administration, an important ally in the House for Tom Daschle, who is expected to be named secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, will be Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), who unseated John Dingell (D-MI), the long-time top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, to become the panel’s new chairman.

The FDA has released its guidance on acceptable terms for cooperative manufacturing arrangements for short supply, divided manufacturing, and shared and contract manufacturing for licensed biologics.

GeoVax Labs, Inc. (Atlanta, GA) will launch its Phase 2a human vaccine trials in 12 sites across North and South America.

WuXi PharmaTech Inc. (Shanghai, China) will discontinue its US biologics manufacturing operations as of December 31, 2008.

Pantec Biosolutions AG (Ruggell, Liechtenstein), a privately owned company developing innovative technologies for transdermal drug delivery, has received CE marking for the company's lead product, P.L.E.A.S.E. (painless laser epidermal system), design which applies micropores into the human skin for the transdermal delivery of large molecular weight drugs.

MorphoSys AG (Munich, Germany) and Galapagos NV (Mechelen, Bengium) have launched a long-term co-development alliance aimed at discovering and developing antibody therapies based on novel modes of action in bone and joint disease, including rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, and osteoarthritis.

Russia has chosen the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) IMOVAX from Sanofi Pasteur (Paris, France), the vaccines division of Sanofi-Aventis Group, for primary immunization of all infants.

Laureate Pharma, Inc. (Princeton, NJ), has entered into contract manufacturing agreements with Tolerx, Inc. (Cambridge, MA), and Tolera Therapeutics, Inc. (Kalamazoo, MI).

Sartorius Stedim Biotech GmbH (SSB, Goettingen, Germany) has acquired the Swiss-based company, Wave Biotech AG (Tagelswangen, Switzerland).

Todd McLaren has joined Hyde Engineering + Consulting, Inc. as senior vice president of marketing and new business development with overall responsibility for the east coast.

A major problem in personalized medicine has been scale-up.

Isis Innovation (Oxford, UK), the University of Oxford’s technology transfer company, has licensed patents based on the work of Oxford Professor Richard Moxon’s research group and research by Canada’s National Research Council Institute for Biological Science to Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics.

GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals S.A. (GSK, London, UK) and AFFiRiS GmbH (Vienna, Austria) have announced a collaboration agreement that grants GSK exclusive rights to AFFiRiS’s Alzheimer’s disease vaccine programs that aims at treating Alzheimer’s by targeting the beta-amyloid protein.

The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) has granted license approval to Bayer HealthCare LLC (Bayer, Berkeley, CA) for its new sterile filling facility on its Berkeley, CA, campus.

PDL BioPharma, Inc. (PDL, Redwood City, CA) has appointed John P. McLaughlin to become president and chief executive officer (CEO) following the company’s planned spin-off of its biotechnology assets.