Following Bayer's withdrawal from joint drug developments with Scottish cloning specialists PPL, the company's New Zealand offshoot is to cull its flock of transgenic sheep, and reduce staff numbers. [ + ]

Strong negative reaction from local industry bodies has led to the US modifying plans to snare biotech IP by funding grants to Australian researchers. [ + ]

A team of researchers headed by the University of Adelaide has been awarded a US$1.27 million grant from the United States to study how lifestyle and health "stress" on eggs and embryos can impact on the later life of children.

Delivery platform specialist Eiffel Technologies has scored a benchmark deal with US-based asthma drug delivery company, Oriel Therapeutics, to re-engineer asthma drugs optimised for inhaler delivery. [ + ]

The Australian Stock Exchange is considering an Australian version of the Nasdaq to cater for the special needs of young technology companies -- especially biotechs. And if the regulators agree, the plans could start seeing the light of day in as little as a month or two. [ + ]

Biotechnology research in New South Wales universities has previously been quite fragmented, but in an attempt to create synergies and collaborative opportunities to bring people with an interest in biotechnology together, Macquarie University has created a new 'virtual' institute - the Macquarie University Biotechnology Research Institute.

Monash biomedical science students will get hands-on experience with mass spectrometry thanks to a US$150,000 equipment grant from Agilent Technologies awarded to the School of Biomedical Sciences today. [ + ]

Sydney bio-nano company Ambri has raised AUD$15.5 million through a placement of ordinary shares to a mix of existing and new institutional investors, and simultaneously announced it will write off $20.7 million worth of IP value from its accounts. [ + ]

The head of the structural biology division at Melbourne's Walter and Eliza Hall Institute has tipped "one to two new drugs" will be developed at the facility in the next five years. [ + ]

The funding floodgates suddenly appear to have swung open for young and not-so-young biotechs -- at least in Queensland. [ + ]

With a nationwide freeze in place on commercial production of genetically modified canola, Australia's leading plant geneticist delivered a warning to GM-shy state governments yesterday: use it, or lose markets. [ + ]

Chemists at the University of Technology, Sydney have developed a test that promises to reduce the number of false negatives in melanoma diagnosis, and potentially for other forms of cancer as well.

Agricultural scientists and biotech researchers should not concentrate on new biotechnology solutions at the expense of traditional methods -- the latter still have plenty of promise, a recent Sydney forum has been told. [ + ]

Online industry and share market watcher Biomedoz has called it a day. Last week, the site posted a note informing users that it would close "in the next couple of days". [ + ]

Cardia subsidiary Bioglobal has signed a marketing and distribution agreement with Cotton Growers Services, a joint venture company owned by Bayer CropScience and Syngenta, for a product to control the Heliothis moth. [ + ]