As it begins Phase IIa clinical trials, Mesoblast is riding high: its share price is climbing, its market capitalisation is booming and all that promise seems to be coming good.

Mesoblast sees heart muscle recovery in Newcastle pilot trial.

Melbourne company Mesoblast has announced positive results from preclinical trials of its patented adult stem cells injected by catheter directly into damaged heart muscle of sheep after a heart attack.

The failure of the anti-influenza drug Tamiflu to save the lives of patients with established H5N1 avian influenza infections may be a consequence of the drug's design, mode of delivery, and the uniqueness of the virus itself, according to experts.

Despite contingency planning, Australia remains highly vulnerable to an influenza pandemic should the deadly strain of avian influenza burning through Asian poultry farms mutate to a form capable of direct human-to-human transmission.

The risk of a SARS pandemic sweeping the world appears to be over, to the great relief of international health authorities who have been awaiting another pandemic of the magnitude of the Spanish 'flu pandemic of 1918-19, which killed an estimated 20 million people on six continents.

Doomsayers repent. The assertion that the Australian biotech industry is Tech Wreck II is incorrect, according to a new study by the Australian Graduate School of Management.