MEDICAL BRIEFS

CIHR awards $195 million over five years

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) has announced its first major round of grants and awards since officially replacing the Medical Research Council (MRC) earlier this year (R$, June 9/00). The granting agency doled out $194.9 million over five years to 647 researchers, which includes 439 operating grants, 19 group grants, 169 training and salary awards, 10 equipment and maintenance grants and nine clinical trials. In line with previous MRC competition awards, Ontario and Quebec-based researchers secured the bulk of the funding ($75.7 million and $73.8 million respectively), accounting for 76.7% of the total. Alberta-based researchers won $19.1 million of the grants, while BC researchers took $11.4 million. Operating grants represented largest share of the awards at $136.6 million, followed by group grants ($30.1 million), clinical trials ($13.2 million) and post doctoral fellowships ($8.3 million). Of the latter, nearly half of the funds were awarded to 38 researchers working outside of Canada. The deadline for the next round of operating grants is September 15. For FY00-01, the CIHR budget is $365 million, and will rise to $475 million in FY01-02.

BioChem enters R&D deal with Ottawa's Adherex

BioChem Pharma Inc has entered into an R&D and licensing agreement with Ottawa-based Adherex Technologies Inc worth a reported $38 million to accelerate development of a series of anticancer compounds based on cell adhesion technology. The deal gives BioChem an equity stake in the three-year-old firm and will fund development as well as provide milestone payments. The McGill Univ spin-off will initially use the development funding to push its lead compound Exherin, which helps destroy blood vessels that feed a cancerous tumor. Pre-clinical trials are nearly complete and human trials are slated for 2001. The agreement marks a significant expansion of BioChem's anticancer program. The Laval-based firm recently received US approval for Troxatyl, its most advanced anticancer agent....

In other news, BioChem is acting on its decision to acquire all of the issued and outstanding Class A common shares of CliniChem Development Inc. It has purchased 14.6% of those shares from Glaxo Wellcome Inc for $3.8 million, bringing its share ownership to 20.8%. BioChem intends to acquire the remaining shares by the time CliniChem's existing funding is exhausted by the end of this year. BioChem formed CliniChem in 1998 to conduct R&D on its therapeutic and vaccine drug candidates without affecting its baseline earning growth potential....

Base 4 technology acquired by SageMaker

Base 4 Inc has entered into partnership with SageMaker Inc, Fairfield CT,which will use the Mississauga-based firm's PharMatrix application on its Internet portal. The collaborative electronic knowledge management technology is designed specifically for project lifecycle management in the life sciences R&D environment and will allow end-users to manage document and data more effectively PharMatrix technology will be integrated with SageMaker's SageWave Pharma & Biotech portal, giving users the ability to capture, store and disseminate knowledge generated during the pharmaceutical, pre-clinical discovery process. Base 4 is a pharmaceutical informatics firm which was spun off from Allelix Biopharmaceuticals Inc....

Researcher announces test for male risk of CHD

A leading Canadian researcher has announced a simple test for identifying the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) in male patients. Dr Jean-Pierre Després, scientific director of the Univ of Laval's Lipid Research Centre and research director of the Quebec Heart Institute, says measuring a patient's waist circumference and triglyceride concentrations will allow family physicians to identify risk at a much earlier stage than currently possible. The finding is based on a study of 287 men which found that men with a waist circumference of greater than 90 cm and triglyceride TG levels above 2.0 mmo/L were at greater risk....