December 22, 2005 -- AtheroGenics licensed its anti-inflammatory cardiovascular drug candidate to AstraZeneca in a deal worth up to $1 billion; Exelixis licensed compounds that target the farnesoid X receptor to Wyeth in a $157.5 million deal; Sanofi-Aventis and Regeneron have now included Japan in their collaboration on VEGF trap; Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck ended their collaboration on diabetes drug Pargluva; Cephalon settled with another generic drug company seeking to break the patent on Provigil, a sleep-disorder drug; BioCryst won FDA clearance to begin human testing of peramivir, its flu drug; Icagen stopped a Phase I trial of its atrial fibrillation drug because of low enrollment; and NuCryst Pharma priced 4.5 million shares at $10 per share, down from the indicated range of $12-$14. The Centient Biotech 200™ gained 47 points to end at 4020.20, a rise of 1.19% and just 12 points from its all-time high. The S&P 500 was up .42% and Nasdaq gained .66%. More details...
