When flailing giant Elan Corp. plc made known its plan to restructure at the end of last month, tremors were felt worldwide. The Securities and Exchange Commission had raised questions about off-balance-sheet accounting procedures related to Elan's joint ventures, of which the company has no less than 55, and there had been shareholder lawsuits along with the more ordinary kind of problems, such as the suspension of clinical dosing of the Alzheimer's drug partnered with Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories. (BioWorld Financial Watch)

In the scandal-ridden business world - where allegations of accounting manipulations and insider trading have been flying like chopped food out of an untopped Martha Stewart food processor - biotechnology, like every other sector, has been spattered. (BioWorld Financial Watch)

If the FDA's delay of approval for Corixa Corp.'s lead cancer product, Bexxar (tositumomab, iodine-131), is doing harm regarding investors, you wouldn't know it from the company's news Monday that it entered a purchase agreement to raise about $45 million in a private placement. (BioWorld Today)

A drug's blow-up in Phase III trials is hardly easy to take in stride, but Biogen Inc. came out of its failure last week seeming not much the worse for wear in the eyes of Wall Street, even if nobody at the company was popping champagne corks. (BioWorld Financial Watch)

With news that its deal with Aventis Pharmaceuticals Inc. to develop Picovir (pleconaril) is being terminated by mutual agreement, ViroPharma Inc.'s stock took another trouncing - and the company disclosed plans to restructure, cutting its work force by 63 percent. (BioWorld Today)

With the antibiotic dalbavancin in Phase II trials, Versicor Inc. said it has agreed to buy collaborator Biosearch Italia SpA - from which it gained the rights to the drug - for $260.7 million in a stock swap expected to close early next year. (BioWorld Today)