Alvine Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a privately held biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing and commercializing therapeutics for autoimmune/gastrointestinal diseases. Alvine's lead product candidate, ALV003, is a combination protease engineered to digest gluten. It is being developed to treat patients with celiac disease. There is no therapy available for treating celiac disease other than complete, life-long avoidance of gluten, a very common food ingredient. Even highly motivated patients who diligently strive to exclude all gluten from their diets may continue to have ongoing damage from celiac disease due to inadvertently ingesting small amounts of gluten. There is a high unmet medical need for celiac disease therapies.     NEWS Alvine Pharmaceuticals Obtains Patents for Celiac Disease Therapies SAN CARLOS, Calif., February 21, 2008 - Alvine Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on the treatment of autoimmune and gastrointestinal diseases, today announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued two key patents, 7,320,788 and 7,303,871, covering gluten detoxification with proline specific prolyl endopeptidases (PEPs) and with mixtures of a PEP and a glutamine specific protease. Read more.   Alvine Pharmaceuticals Initiates Phase I Trial for ALV003 SAN CARLOS, Calif., February 13, 2008 - Alvine Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on the treatment of autoimmune and gastrointestinal diseases, today announced that the first study subject was dosed in a Phase 1 clinical trial of its lead clinical candidate ALV003 which is in development for the treatment of patients with celiac disease... Read more.   Additional information about Alvine's clinical trials can be found here.