CSL (ASX:CSL), which last week became the world's largest supplier of blood plasma products after its purchase of Aventis Behring, now aims to maximise its return from those products by developing a therapy for stroke. [ + ]

The Victorian College of Pharmacy's AUD$17 million Centre for Drug Candidate Optimisation has been officially opened in Parkville. [ + ]

Medica Holdings (ASX:MCA) subsidiary Cytopia says it is firmly on the path to clinical trials with its anti-cancer molecule, after getting positive results from animal studies. [ + ]

Cortical, a spin-out from Monash University in Melbourne, has closed a deal worth up to AUD$1 million with US biotech Genzyme to collaborate on the development of oral drugs for inflammatory diseases based on Cortical's small molecule antagonists of the cytokine macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF). [ + ]

Sufferers of type-two diabetes may soon be able to inhale rather than inject their insulin thanks to Melbourne researchers who have re-engineered the insulin molecule.

A Phase II clinical study under way in Melbourne has confirmed the promise of metal-chelating agents for treating -- and perhaps even preventing -- the devastating neurogenerative disorder Alzheimer's disease. [ + ]

Medical Developments International (ASX:MVP) floated on the ASX on Monday at AUD$0.495 -- almost double its IPO placement price of $0.25. [ + ]

Western Australian company CollTech is aiming to raise up to AUD$5 million in its IPO to build a collagen extraction and purification facility, based on its novel and proprietary method for extracting the protein from sheep skins. [ + ]

AusBiotech members have elected Johnson & Johnson Research managing director Susan Pond, venture capitalist Leigh Farrell and former Amrad managing director Sandra Webb as corporate directors to its board, after a tight race between nine candidates. Western Australian Biomedical Research Institute director Simon Carroll was also re-elected as an institutional director. [ + ]

They seek it here, they seek it there, but it remains hidden in the genetic thickets of flowering and seed development. A place in history awaits its finder. [ + ]

Adelaide biotechnology company Bionomics (ASX:BNO, US OTC:BMICY) has found a friendly American bloodhound to help it track down new genes involved in epilepsy -- the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. [ + ]

Leading Australasian biscuit manufacturer Arnotts has reacted to the threat of a consumer demonstration against its products in New Zealand by renewing its commitment to avoid the use of GM ingredients. [ + ]

Perth-based pharmaceutical company Chemeq (ASX:CMQ) has announced that patents on its polymeric molecules to control microbial diseases in livestock have been approved in the US, Europe, Eurasia and China. [ + ]

Melbourne therapeutic vaccine company Virax (ASX:VHL) has taken its hepatitis B treatment into the pre-clinical development phase. [ + ]

Adelaide company TGR Biosciences has received a grant from the Gardiner Foundation to look for bioactives in milk. [ + ]