Worries of Tysabri's side effect risks are on the rise, BDSI goes on a publicity blitz to boost its stock and Trimeris finds a potential buyer.

Patients grow wary of Tysabri

Concerns are on the rise about Tysabri's side effects. The multiple sclerosis therapy, which Biogen Idec makes at its plant near Research Triangle Park, has been linked to more than a dozen cases of a potentially deadly brain infection called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, or PML.

A few months ago, Biogen stopped reporting new PML cases, but during his third-quarter earnings call with analysts, Biogen's chief executive acknowledged that the risk of developing PML seems to increase the longer a patient takes the drug.

The risk of coming down with PML has had an effect on patients and doctors. The number of new patients starting on the drug every week decreased slightly in the third quarter compared to the second quarter.

Biogen temporarily withdrew Tysabri from the market in 2005 and reintroduced the drug a year later with closer patient monitoring in place and with approval from the Food and Drug Administration.

BDSI goes on publicity blitz

BioDelivery Sciences International has been on a publicity blitz to appeal to institutional investors as Onsolis, a pain patch that is the Raleigh drug development company's first product, hits the market.

Mark Sirgo, BDSI's chief executive, rang the bell at the NASDAQ stock market's opening and sat for interviews with TheStreet.com TV and The Wall Street Transcript in the past two weeks.

The effort hasn't helped the stock - it's down below $5 per share from a high of near $7 per share in June. But at least one analyst says he's impressed. Matthew Kaplan, managing director of the health care group at Ladenburg Thalmann, told The Wall Street Transcript that he liked BDSI.

In other company news:

• Shareholders of Oxygen Biotherapeutics approve a 15-1 reverse stock split. The Durham drug development company hopes to get listed on a major exchange now that it boosted its stock price.

• A Korean company offered about $80 million to buy Trimeris, a Durham company that has shut down its lab and laid off all but a handful of employees. Sales of Trimeris' AIDS drug Fuzeon continued to drop in the third quarter.

• Quintiles Transnational, a Durham company that helps drugmakers test and sell new medicines, launched a Web site, ClinicalResearch.com, to make it easier for patients to find a clinical trial.