British Prime Minister Tony Blair said the government would provide £10 million (AUD$16.9 million) to study ways to get more experimental medicines to patients through better and faster clinical trials. [ + ]

Genesis Biomedical (ASX: GBL) has signed a Heads of Agreement with ENSI-MED Manufacturing to acquire 100 per cent of the issued capital of the Canberra-based retractable syringe manufacturer. [ + ]

Australia's oldest medical research institution, the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, has made a major move into the biotechnology arena with the opening of its AUD$27.5 million Biotechnology Centre. [ + ]

Melbourne company Genetic Technologies Ltd (ASX: GTG) has settled two of three lawsuits brought against US biotechnology companies for alleged infringements of its non-coding DNA gene-testing patents. [ + ]

Perth-based biotechnology company EQiTX and the CRC for Vaccine Technologies have negotiated an agreement for EQiTX to develop and commercialise the CRC's proprietary lipopeptide vaccine technology platform. [ + ]

Molecular geneticists at Melbourne University's Institute of Land and Food Resources plan to use RNA interference gene silencing to remove a potent neurotoxin from the manure and feed crop, vetch (Vicia sativa). [ + ]

Shareholders at Ventracor's annual general meeting in Brisbane yesterday raised not a jot of concern about the board's surprise decision this week to replace CEO Michael Spooner with former Sirtex chief Colin Sutton. [ + ]

Sydney-based devices company Polartechnics (ASX:PLT) has signed a heads of agreement with US company Open Systems Imaging (OSI) to market and sell its melanoma detection and monitoring system SolarScan in the US. [ + ]

Newly-listed company Pharmaxis (ASX:PXS) has appointed ex-Novartis Australia CEO Gary Phillips as commercial director to look after sales and marketing efforts as the company prepares to complete clinical trials and roll out its first product. [ + ]

Australian Cancer Technology (ASX:ACU) has partnered with Prof Ursula Kees at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research to develop a diagnostic test able to rapidly screen tumour samples for deleted tumour suppressor genes. [ + ]

Melbourne clinical trials group Cancer Trials Australia (CTA) opened a new state-of-the-art laboratory on Wednesday, to complement other clinical trials services offered by the group. [ + ]

With the honeybee genome about to be completed, work is ramping up in Assoc Prof Ben Oldroyd's laboratory at the University of Sydney to take advantage of the information it offers. [ + ]

NSW Agriculture Minister Ian MacDonald has advised Bayer CropScience that it will not have to destroy a trial crop of genetically modified herbicide-tolerant canola near Wagga, despite the discovery of a small number of canola plants in the surrounding buffer zone. [ + ]

A number of multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies from Europe, the US and the Asia-Pacific are evaluating Select Vaccine's rapid diagnostic hepatitis A kit as a forerunner to license negotiations, the company (ASX:SLT) said on Tuesday. [ + ]

Premier Bionics (ASX:PBI) is ramping up its efforts to find a commercial partner for its Airway Clear sleep apnoea monitoring device. [ + ]