Dapoxetine

Eleven collaborations and two acquisitions involving North Carolina biotechnology companies were announced in March and April.

Advanced Animal Diagnostics, Research Triangle Park, will conduct its research and development activities at the BD Technologies BioVenture Center incubator facility in Research Triangle Park.

Amphora Discovery, Durham, signed a two-year research agreement to help discover drugs for Strasbourg, France-based pharmaceutical company Aventis.

Bayer CropScience's United States and Canadian operations will pay $124 million to purchase Crompton Corp.'s 50 percent share of the Gustafson seed treatment business in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Diosynth Biotechnology, Research Triangle Park, will make experimental anti-cancer drugs for use in Phase III clinical trials for NeoPharm, Lake Forest, III.

GlaxoSmithKline and Theravance Inc., San Francisco, will expand their partnership to develop new treatments for bacterial, respiratory, and urinary ailments.

Merix Bioscience, Durham, announced an agreement with Geron Corp., Menlo Park, Calif., to develop cancer vaccines.

Norak Biosciences, Morrisville, and SCYNEXlS, Research Triangle Park, have entered into a research collaboration to discover and develop novel pharmaceutical compounds.

Norak Biosciences, Morrisville, announced the completion of a screening collaboration agreement with Sumitomo Pharmaceuticals, Japan, to utilize its Transfluor[R] technology for G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) drug discovery.

PPD, Wilmington, signed with Johnson & Johnson to begin Phase III trials of a compound, dapoxetine, which targets premature ejaculation among men.

Regado Biosciences, Morrisville, signed a contract with Transgenomic, Omaha, Neb., which will manufacture two components of its anticoagulant drug.

SciQuest, Research Triangle Park, has agreed to be acquired for $25.25 million in cash by California-based Trinity Ventures

Tranzyme Pharma, Research Triangle Park, announced that it is expanding its strategic alliance with BD Technologies, a unit of BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), Franklin Lakes, N.J., on the development and commercialization of novel high-throughput assays for drug discovery.

Tranzyme Pharma, Research Triangle Park, and Shin Nippon Biomedical Laboratories, Japan, have entered a joint research collaboration to develop non-human primate models of human diseases for medical research and drug discovery.

COPYRIGHT 2004 North Carolina Biotechnology Center
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group