They were set up to bring key Australian scientists back from overseas. But nearly two thirds of last year's crop of Australian Research Council (ARC) Federation Fellowships was awarded to scientists already living here. [ + ]

Shares in Melbourne-based biopharma Biota Holdings (ASX:BTA) rose today in the wake of media reports that Holland has placed an order for Relenza, the anti-flu drug developed by Biota and commercialised by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). [ + ]

LabWare has won the Scientific Computing and Instrumentation Readers' Choice Award in the LIMS category for the past six years running. SC&I conducts an annual Readers' Choice Award survey asking readers to rate various laboratory applications and instrument categories.

Arthron, a subsidiary of Prima Biomed (ASX:PRR) has signed a license and option agreement with US biotechnology company Xencor to utilise Arthron's Fc receptor technology for enhancing the effect of anti-cancer antibodies. [ + ]

Continuing development of its lead product VivaGel has boosted Starpharma's (ASX:SPL) 2004-05 losses to $5.5 million, up 38 per cent from the previous year. [ + ]

Sydney proteomics R&D company Proteome Systems (ASX:PXL) will raise about $10 million through the issue of over 33 million fully paid ordinary shares to institutional and professional investors in the UK, US and Australia at a price of $0.30 per share. [ + ]

Scientists around the world are racing to create the first 'smart' contrast agent to enhance the use of MRI in measuring biological processes in the body, and three early-career researchers at the University of Queensland (UQ) are in the running. [ + ]

Specialty pharmaceutical company Acrux (ASX:ACR) has reported positive results from two more clinical studies of its Testosterone MD-Lotion treatment for testosterone deficiency in men. [ + ]

The market potential for Brisbane biopharma Alchemia's (ASX:ACL) generic version of GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) anti-blood clot drug Arixtra has been significantly enhanced by clinical trial results finding that the Arixtra is safer and as effective as Sanofi-Aventis' Lovenox, the traditional therapy used for preventing heart attacks, death and ischemia in people with serious heart conditions. [ + ]

Artificial heart company Ventracor (ASX:VCR) has recalled the external components of its VentrAssist left ventricular assist system (LVAS) following the discovery of an anomaly in certain lots of the cable which connects the externally worn controller to the implanted VentrAssist blood pump. [ + ]

The Universities of Queensland and Melbourne, the founding investors in university based pre-seed venture fund Uniseed, have extended their commitments to the fund by a further $8 million each. [ + ]

Biotransformation - using plant cells in culture to create new pharmaceuticals that are safer, more powerful and effective than the old ones they are made from, is opening new horizons in drug design says Professor Tony Bacic of the Cooperative Research Centre for Bioproducts and the University of Melbourne.

Neuren Pharmaceuticals (ASX:NEU) has been issued two additional US patents expanding its portfolio to Parkinson's disease and hypertension. [ + ]

Medical diagnostics company Panbio's (ASX:PBO) new assay for Japanese encephalitis (JE), released for sale just two days ago, has received immediate interest and has been shipped to India where a JE outbreak has resulted in 1145 reported cases, including 296 deaths. [ + ]

A US$20 million grant to develop Proteome Systems' (ASX:PXL) proprietary therapeutic compounds for the treatment of radiation exposure caused by terrorist attacks or industry accidents has been awarded to a consortium comprising Proteome Systems, the Medical College of Wisconsin, Henry Ford Health Systems in Detroit, and the University of Toronto. [ + ]