Melbourne biotech company EpiTan (ASX:EPT) has posted a loss of AUD$4 million for the 2002-2003 financial year, primarily due to the expenses of running Phase II clinical trials on its lead drug candidate Melanotan. [ + ]

Joining the list of companies taking advantage of increased investor interest in the biotechnology sector, Prana Biotechnology (ASX:PBT) has raised AUD$5 million in a placement to institutional and sophisticated investors at a price of $0.70 per share. [ + ]

Western Australian biotech company Solbec Pharmaceuticals (ASX:SBP) may have struck therapeutic gold in a thorny wayside weed called devil's apple (Solanum linnaeanum) . [ + ]

Engineers have developed tiny engines - only a few millimetres wide - that will soon replace a standard battery.

Adelaide epilepsy specialist Bionomics (ASX:BNO) has reported an after-tax loss of $4.54 million for the year to June 30, up from $3.49 million in 2001-02. [ + ]

Monash University yesterday launched its new Centre for Brain and Behaviour, bringing together more than 150 researchers including students and postdocs from 21 university departments and research centres. [ + ]

Political sparring over the Australian National Synchrotron raised its head again last week, when Victoria's opposition deputy leader Phil Honeywood claimed that the project would cost the state AUD$537 million over the next decade, and called the project a white elephant. [ + ]

Market analyst Standard and Poor's has added four more Australian biotechnology firms and a medical device company to its S&P300 index. [ + ]

Collaborators of Perth devices company Xcell Diagnostics (ASX:XEL) have received a US NIH grant worth more than AUD$1 million (US$702,000) to perform clinical studies on Xcell's Funhaler paediatric asthma spacer device. [ + ]

More than 130 scientists and clinicians got a glimpse of synchrotron-based medicine at a recent workshop held at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne. [ + ]

Melbourne drug re-engineering company Eiffel Technologies (ASX:EIF) has signed an agreement with a large US drug-delivery company to trial an inhalable form of insulin produced by Eiffel's proprietary supercritical fluid technology. [ + ]

International honours have been bestowed on Charles Sturt University (CSU) Professor of Irrigation Graeme Batten for his leading research into the rapid, reliable and low cost analysis technique which has revolutionised crop management.

Unlisted Melbourne company Cerylid Biosciences has reorganised, necessitating the layoff of a portion of its staff. [ + ]

The federal government made a decision more than a year ago not to take up an option to extend its contract with CSL for the supply of blood plasma products to Australian hospitals for another five years. [ + ]

Canberra biotechnology company Biotron (ASX: BIT) has added dengue virus to the lengthening list of potentially lethal human viruses that possess ion-channel genes. [ + ]