Gray skies hover over the nation’s medicine chest, and nearby regions, this morning. Here are a few items to help ward off that gloomy feeling. Hope the weather is better where you are…

Sanofi-Aventis is considering making acquisitions in order to catch up in the field of monoclonal antibodies, pharmaceutical head Hanspeter Spek told Financial Times Deutschland. “Monoclonal antibodies are our weak point, we are running very late there,” Spek says, adding that he hopes it’s not too late and that an acquisition could put things right.

Glaxo has agreed to pay up to $965 million to Synta Pharmaceuticals as part of a collaboration on a late-stage study to develop the most deadly form of skin cancer, metastatic melanoma. Synta will fund all development, but the companies will share costs for development in other indications and outside the US. In the US, both drugmakers will conduct marketing.

A federal appeals court has tossed a $42.5 million settlement between Medco and employee benefit plans, and also de-certified the class, which accused the pharmacy benefits manager of breaching its fiduciary duty, Health Law 360 reports. The so-called Gruer case also accused the PBM of favoring Merck drugs. Merck spun off Medco several years ago.

Finally, last night, Bioenvision and Genzyme vowed to forge ahead with their planned $345 million merger and filed a petition with a Delaware court seeking to reconvene a special meeting of shareholders. SCO Capital Partners LLC, which holds about 13.4 percent of Bioenvision, opposes the deal because the price isn’t high enough, and has vowed to vote against Genzyme’s proposed takeover.