The Wellcome Trust will continue to help fund the early stages of drug discovery for another five years by extending its Seeding Drug Discovery initiative with a further £110 million.

Biota Holdings has acquired early stage antibacterial programmes from the UK firm Prolysis and MaxThera of the US, in an effort to extend its research interests beyond antivirals and into the wider anti-infective area.

A preview of the emerging health care companies profiled in the current issue of Start-Up. This month's profile group, Biotechs Battle Bacteria, features profiles of AureoGen Biosciences, Biovertis, Inimex Pharmaceuticals and Prolysis. Plus these Start-Ups across Health Care: Afmedica, Intercept Pharmaceuticals and MAP Pharmaceuticals.

Prolysis Ltd. reckons it has a head start over other biotechs seeking novel anti-infectives because its core technology--a series of whole cell assays targeting critical bacterial pathways--allows it to select, early on, only those compounds that get inside the bacterial cell.