Auckland biopharma Neuren Pharmaceuticals (ASX:NEU) has executed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine for inclusion of US Army hospital sites in Neuren's phase III trial of its lead drug Glypromate.

Melbourne's Austin Research Institute (ARI) and vaccine developer Panvax have signed an agreement with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research to develop an experimental malaria vaccine.

Preclinical trials of Auckland biopharma Neuren's (ASX:NEU latest neuroprotectant, NNZ-2566, have convinced the US Army's Walter Reed Research Institute in Washington to back a clinical trial of the new drug in brain-trauma patients.

Prof Alan Cowman and his team at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI) are part of an international consortium that has won a US$13 million Grand Challenge in Global Health grant to develop a treatment for malaria.

After running out of influenza vaccines during last winter's major epidemic, the US confronts the prospect of an even more severe shortfall in the coming season.

There must be something in the water in Sydney’s North Ryde that encourages biotech.

The way certain cytokines regulate the immune response to mousepox has potential to help with poxvirus infections, including smallpox, according to new research at the ANU.

Malaria is not just an abstraction for Kenyan researcher Lucy Ochola. As an infant, she contracted malaria, and survived. She was lucky -- in the western highlands of her homeland, infant mortality from malaria approaches 30 per cent.

Leading US nanotechnology innovator Dendritic Nanotechnologies (DNT) continues to shine for its associate and 49.9 per cent owner Melbourne drug-developer Starpharma (ASX: SPL), after being granted a US patent on a new self-assembly technique for its giant, branched molecules, called dendrimers.

Biota (ASX:BTA) has formed an agreement with two US government agencies -- the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) -- to test the company's antiviral compounds for activity against the SARS virus.

Starpharma's (ASX:SPL) 2002-03 revenues jumped 11 per cent to AUD$1.5 million and its operating loss fell to $7.7 million, the company has announced.