Future drug development efforts are likely to depend heavily on access to patient and clinical data, according to IBM's Dr Bruce Ross, who gave a keynote speech at the recent Health Informatics Conference 2004 held in Brisbane. [ + ]

Clinical Cell Culture (C3; ASX: CCE) has completed an AUD$9.8 million placement to Australian institutional and sophisticated investors to help fund the company's expansion into European and US markets. [ + ]

CSIRO has reported sharp rise in intellectual property revenues 2003-04 financial year, to $22 million -- a 60 per cent increase on its 2003-03 figure of $13.75 million. [ + ]

New Sydney biotechnology company Applimex Systems, Macquarie University’s latest spin-off, is commercialising microbes that, in the modern tabloid lexicon, qualify as 'superbugs'. [ + ]

Alchemia (ASX: ACL) has completed the scale-up of its manufacturing process for synthetic heparin on schedule. [ + ]

Microbiologists warned nearly three decades ago that antibiotics used as livestock growth promoters were a human health hazard. [ + ]

Researchers at the Wolfson Institute for Biomedical Research at University College London have developed a test to detect cancer of the oesophagus which could improve survival rates. [ + ]

Select Vaccines (ASX: SLT) shares jumped 18 per cent to close at AUD$0.33 yesterday after the company announced it had successfully reached an agreement to license its hepatitis E laboratory and point-of-care diagnostic tests to Genelabs Diagnostics. [ + ]

New Melbourne-based biotechnology company PolyNovo Biomaterials has gone into the body-bits business -- with a material straight from the surgery of the Starship Enterprise. [ + ]

Regenera (ASX:RGA) has picked up three new applications for ocular applications of its core product Visagen, a proprietary formulation of synthetic steroid triamcinolone acetonide. [ + ]

A five-nation oceanographic team is taking the first steps in a $3.6 million project studying the major flow of ocean currents between Asia and Australia and how they influence rainfall across Southern Australia and Indonesia.

The National Stem Cell Centre (NSCC) has signed a research collaboration agreement with Nephrogenix, the company responsible for commercialising outcomes from the Renal Regeneration Consortium (RRC), which is investigating kidney development and regeneration. [ + ]

Regenera (ASX: RGA) has received ethics committee approval to begin Phase III human clinical trials for its synthetic steroid drug Visagen at the Singapore Eye Research Institute. [ + ]

Starpharma (ASX: SPL) will move to the next stage of the Phase I clinical trial for its nanodendrimer-based vaginal microbicide VivaGel, after the US FDA approved a dose increase based on the interim trial results. [ + ]

Micro-organisms thriving in polluted urban areas are held largely responsible for the crumbling of cultural heritage sites worldwide. Now, scientists from the University of Portsmouth, England, are looking at ways to reverse the trend and put some of the bacteria to good use.