NanoBio said today it signed a licensing deal with the University of Michigan to help commercialize a vaccine against urinary tract infections (UTI).

The biopharmaceutical startup, based in Ann Arbor, MI, wants to use its NanoStat platform technology to deliver through the nose an antigen developed by U-M scientists designed to kill E. coli bacteria in the urinary tract.

Women are especially vulnerable to the disease, though researchers are not sure why. Doctors normally rely on antibiotics to treat the UTI; however, there’s currently no way to prevent infection.

NanoBio hopes to be one of the first companies to successfully develop a vaccine. Until now, scientists have yet of figure out how to coax the body to effectively deliver large molecules like antibodies to mucosal surfaces of the urinary tract, where the infection occurs, the company said. NanoBio is betting that it has figured out how to deliver its vaccine there, through its nanoparticle delivery technology.

“We are confident the combination of effective UTI antigens with NanoBio’s NanoStat adjuvant platform technology will result in strong mucosal immunity that can prevent these infections,” Ali Fattom, NanoBio’s senior vice president of vaccine research and development, said in a statement.

Once NanoBio proves the treatment works in mice, it says it will be ready to begin a human clinical trial. The company did not offer a timetable.

Some research, however, suggests URI may be beyond the reach of just one vaccine. E. coli causes the vast majority of UTI cases but slightly different strains of the bacteria have been found after each subsequent infection, according to the National Kidney and Urological Diseases Information Clearinghouse. That implies each infection is unique.

NanoBio, founded by U-M nanotech expert Jim Baker Jr., spun out of the U-M’s Center for Biologic Nanotechnology in 2000. Backed by the private equity firm Perseus, the company is pursuing treatments for herpes labialis (cold sores), onychomycosis (nail fungus), acne, cystic fibrosis and mucosal vaccines for influenza, pneumococcal infections and RSV.

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There was a lot of life sciences news over the past week in San Diego, with much of it coming out of the American Diabetes Association annual meeting in New Orleans.

—At a time when San Diego’s Amylin Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AMLN) doesn’t need more challenges, Denmark’s Novo Nordisk announced that liraglutide, its once-daily diabetes drug, is substantially better at controlling blood sugar in type 2 diabetes than Amylin’s exenatide, which is injected twice-daily.

—If Amylin Pharmaceuticals’ rivals are targeting the diabetes specialist, at least the San Diego biotech is a moving target. Amylin says the latest clinical data for the new formulation of its exenatide diabetes drug (which only has to be injected once weekly instead of twice daily) shows patients were able to maintain control over blood sugar for two years, helped them lose weight, and lowered their blood pressure.

—San Diego’s Orexigen Therapeutics (NASDAQ: OREX) posted new results of its late-stage drug for treating obesity, showing that 41.5 percent of patients on the drug lost 10 percent of their body weight. That compared with 20.2 percent who did as well taking a placebo.

—Another San Diego drug developer, Arena Pharmaceuticals, (NASDAQ: ARNA) says patients on its lorcaserin treatment for a year generally had reduced their risk of heart attacks.

—San Diego’s Anadys Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ANDS) is cutting its workforce by 40 percent and focusing its remaining resources on its lead drug candidate for treating the hepatitis C virus. The company also says it’s raising $17.5 million.

—Trius Therapeutics, a San Diego biotech developing a new antibiotic against deadly MRSA bacterial infections, said a study showed 98 percent of patients on the lowest dose of its new compound achieved a clinical cure. 

—Raj Krishnan, a bioengineering Ph.D candidate at UC San Diego, began entering student entrepreneur and business contests as a way to raise money for Biological Dynamics, the cancer diagnostics company he co-founded. It worked. He has now won 13 awards, and his most recent win included a check for $40,000. Krishnan, 27, says his research is focused on technology to identify a key biomarker for almost every type of cancer.

—After getting a $20 million infusion from investors last month, San Diego’s Vical (NASDAQ: VICL) says it has enough resources to continue operating through the end of 2011, which should be enough time to complete its clinical study of an immune-stimulating therapy for metastatic melanoma. Vical also is developing a vaccine to prevent life-threatening cytomegalovirus infections in bone marrow transplant patients.

—Bothell, WA-based Sonosite (NASDAQ: SONO) says it’s acquiring San Diego’s CardioDynamics International (NASDAQ: CDIC) in a deal valued at about $10 million. Sonosite makes portable ultrasound machines and CardioDynamics makes noninvasive medical diagnostic tools for cardiovascular disease.

—San Diego-based Tocagen, which is developing gene therapy treatments for terminally ill cancer patients, was among three biotechs that raised cash recently. Tocagen has raised $10.8 million in an $11.2 million equity offering that began in September. The startup was founded in 2007 by Harry Gruber, who previously founded Gensia Pharmaceuticals, Viagene, Aramed, and Metabasis, among others.

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American Well, a Boston-based provider of a network that enables patients to meet with doctors over a multimedia Web interface, says that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota has signed on to offer American Well’s services to the health plan’s employees and their family members. This is American Well’s first customer in the continental U.S., having announced last June that it would roll out its service for the first time for the Hawaii Medical Service Association.

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Ariad Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:ARIA), a Cambridge, MA-based developer of drugs for cancer and other diseases, says it has sold 14.37 million shares of common stock to new and existing institutional investors for $1.69 per share, or a total of $24.3 million. Investors were also granted .75 warrants for each share purchased to buy Ariad’s stock at $2.15 per share. Ariad is in late-stage development of its lead drug candidate, deforolimus, for advanced cases of sarcoma cancer, in collaboration with Whitehouse Station, NJ-based drug firm Merck.

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Forma Therapeutics, a Cambridge, MA-based developer of cancer drugs, reports it has struck a license and option agreement with Swiss drug giant Novartis, through Forma investor Novartis Option Fund. Novartis will pay Forma an upfront fee and potential payments of more than $200 million, providing Novartis the option to license from Forma drugs that inhibit an undisclosed protein-protein interaction in the field of oncology. (I wrote last week that Forma was expecting to announce this deal.)

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Lexington, MA-based drug maker NitroMed (NASDAQ:NTMD) says it has received an unsolicited bid from investment group Deerfield Management—which already owns about 12 percent of NitroMed’s stock—to acquire NitroMed for 50 cents per share in cash, a 40-percent premium on its closing price today of 30 cents per share. The company says it’s evaluating the offer. The unsolicited bid follows the November 18 announcement of a proposed all-stock merger between NitroMed and Cambridge, MA-based biotech firm Archemix, which is pending approval from both firms’ shareholders and the sale of NitroMed’s heart failure drug BiDil (hydralazine and isosorbide dinitrate) to JHP Pharmaceuticals.

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