Company News

Evotec AG is downgrading its proprietary discovery and development business and instead emphasizing its research services to third parties.

Vernalis Plc has signed a new, three-year collaboration with the Servier group of France to discover drugs against an undisclosed cancer target. This is the second cancer collaboration in two years between the two companies.

After strong revenue growth and a small profit in the 2009 first quarter, Crucell NV is maintaining its forecast for increases in both revenue and operating profit for the year as a whole. The first quarter results were boosted by sales of paediatric vaccines.

Shire Plc, the UK specialty pharmaceutical company, reported sparkling results for the first 2009 quarter, but this happened to be the last quarter in which its lead drug will be free from generic competition.

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.

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.

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.

Merck & Co has announced plans to invest in a combination monoclonal antibody treatment which is being investigated for Clostridium difficile infection, the primary cause of infectious diarrhea in hospitalized elderly patients.

The Roche Group said that a Phase 3 trial of its antibody, Avastin (bevacizumab), plus chemotherapy, for the treatment of colon cancer immediately after surgery, did not meet its primary endpoint of lowering the risk of the cancer returning.