> Earlier this week we profiled the UK's Vantia Therapeutics. Today The Telegraph looks at Vantia's experimental therapy for severe menstrual cramps, which Vantia now has in mid-stage testing in a trial involving 128 women. Report
> Yesterday the Texas biotech Repros Therapeutics got a big boost with the announcement that its experimental testosterone therapy had produced promising data. Today it announced a deal to sell 3.5 million of its shares to institutional investors for $1.27 per share. Repros release
> Hana Biosciences has announced a $12.4 million private placement. Release
> South San Francisco-based OXiGENE says that its CEO, has handed in his walking papers. Dr. Peter Langecker, M.D., Ph.D., executive vice president and chief development officer, will serve as interim CEO while the company looks for a permanent replacement. Release
> Canada's Labopharm has forged a European supply and distribution deal with Grunenthal GmbH for its twice-daily tramadol acetaminophen pain drug. Story
> Keryx Biopharmaceuticals has launched a Phase II clinical study to evaluate KRX-0401 (perifosine) as a single agent treatment for relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia and small lymphocytic lymphoma. Release
> New Horizons Global, which makes an omega-3 substitute for pharmaceuticals, is moving 60 jobs from Northern Ireland to the UK. Report
Pharma News
> Three pharma CEOs pitch their own reform ideas. Article
> Ready for some good pharma news? A boost in American insurance will push worldwide drug sales up by 4 percent to 6 percent in 2010, IMS Health predicts. Article
> One doctor's flouting of the rules has Boston Medical Center re-examining its conflict of interest policy. Hospital officials and Dr. Karen Antman, provost of the Boston University Medical Campus, are reconvening the committee that governs doctor relationships with industry, aiming to review not only industry speaking fees, but just how much control speakers have over their industry-funded presentations. Report
> New word on the street about GlaxoSmithKline's interest in India's Dr Reddy's Laboratories: sources tell Reuters that Glaxo is looking a phased buy-in to the country's second-largest drugmaker. Story
> According to internal documents, AstraZeneca outlined a 'weight-neutral' Seroquel pitch. Report
Vaccine News
> An experimental vaccine designed to combat cocaine addiction demonstrated some promising results in a small human trial. Scientists in Texas say that the vaccine triggers the production of antibodies that bind to drug molecules, making them too big to enter the brain. But the trial was hardly an unqualified success. Item
> Glaxo is seeing a huge rush for Pandemrix supplies. Report
> Sanofi-Aventis says a single dose of its new swine flu vaccine kicked up just the kind of immune response it was hoping to see in children as well as adults. And the new data offers some added proof that the world's growing stockpile of pandemic vaccines will go twice as far as originally predicted. Report
And Finally... Researchers at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center are helping to lead a massive international study on the possible genetic effects of radiation and cancer drug exposures on future generations. Report