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In today’s Bulldog wrapup of tech and biotech news: Cisco warns about a vulnerability in its Internet phones; Google’s Eric Schmidt backs Glass; researchers to seek gluten-free wheat; Square’s “Cash” app for businesses; and Ikea drops its online magazine in Russia over gay law concerns. The details: Cisco’s vulnerability warning Here’s the advisory issued by Cisco about a vulnerability in its Internet phones: A vulnerability in the firmware of the Cisco Small Business SPA 300 and 500 series IP phones could allow an unauthenticated, remote attacker to listen to the audio stream of an IP phone. The vulnerability is...

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to a deal worth more than $350 million with UK biotech company Adaptimmune to develop cancer drugs, the Financial Times reported on Monday. GSK, which sold its cancer drugs business to Swiss drugmaker Novartis in April, is expected to announce the deal on Monday in London, according to Reuters and the Financial Times. GSK reportedly would pay Adaptimmune as much as $350 million over the next seven years, which will be subject to development milestones being met according to reports. Further payments would be due in subsequent years if GSK exercises...

In our Bulldog blog’s tech and life science news update: RTI and ChannelAdvisor appoint new executives; Lenovo shares soar; Chelsea Therapeutics’ drug gets a recommendation from an FDA advisory panel; and IBM wins an enterprise award. RTI International names new chief information officer RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – Neale D’Rozario is now chief information officer for RTI International, where his responsibilities will include technology planning for the research institute. RTI said that D’Rozario’s first priority will be to create a global IT strategy aligned with RTI’s business plans. D’Rozario brings more than 33 years of IT experience to RTI; he...

Contract drug developer and manufacturer Patheon (TSX:PTI) is being taken private and merged with part of Dutch firm Royal DSM in a $2.6 billion deal that creates a new global pharmaceuticals manufacturer. Under the deal, the new, yet-to-be named company will acquire all shares of Durham-based Patheon for $9.32 per share, or $9.72 cents Canadian, a 64 percent premium over Patheon’s closing stock price on Monday. The deal values Patheon at $1.4 billion. New York-based private equity firm JLL, which owns 55.7 percent of Patheon’s restricted voting shares, will own 51 percent of the new company and DSM will...

GlaxoSmithKline today received Food and Drug Administration approval on two drugs intended to treat the most advanced form of skin cancer that can’t be removed by surgery. In gaining regulatory approval on Tafinlar and Mekinist, GSK also gets steps into the arena for personalized medicine skin cancer therapies, territory already staked out by Roche. Like Roche’s Zelboraf, GSK’s two new skin cancer drugs will be administered only to patients that have a particular gene mutation showing that the drug will work for them. A genetic test will show whether the GSK’s cancer drugs will work on the skin cancer....

The multi-billion deal for IBM’s to sell parts of its server business to Lenovo is now in doubt. Talks have broken down over valuation concerns, Fortune first reported Wednesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the talks. So far, Lenovo and IBM aren’t commenting about the proposed deal. Technology business publication CRN was first to report last month that IBM was seeking $5 billion to $6 billion for its x86 server business. Lenovo confirmed last month that it was was in preliminary talks to buy a third-party server business but did not identify the vendor, CRN said. Lenovo Chief Financial...

For GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK), what a difference a few years makes. GSK’s stock closed at $45.66 per share on Friday. That’s $2.10 below the stock’s 52-week high. But for perspective, consider the company’s fortunes as it entered 2009. As if facing the looming drug patent cliff wasn’t enough, the scrutiny of health risks associated with company’s diabetes drug Avandia was mounting. In March of 2009, GSK stock traded as low as $29.12 per share. But the company’s fortunes now appear brighter. The biggest drug for London-based GSK, which has its U.S. headquarters in Research Triangle Park, is the respiratory...

Quintiles, the biggest provider of testing services to drugmakers, filed to raise $600 million in an initial public offering. Morgan Stanley, Barclays Plc and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are leading the offering, according to a regulatory filing Friday. The company didn’t specify a price range or a date for the proposed sale, and the amount is a placeholder that may change. But a public offering would be the second for the Durham company. The clinical research organization went public in 1994, only to be taken private again in 2003 when founder and then CEO Dennis Gillings and others bought...