OVP Venture Partners has decided to end any future fundraising as it takes steps to scuttle its operations. OVP, which has invested in startups for 29 years, has primarily invested in early-stage life sciences, tech, and clean tech companies. The firm plans to let go of half of its managing directors this year and will keep a small crew on board to help manage investments from its 2007 fund of $250 million. The Kirkland, Washington-based firm had been a major investor in the early-stage biotech industry in the Northwest. OVP helped fund Seattle Genetics, Allozyne, and Complete Genomics, while one of its managing directors, Carl Weissman, was instrumental in starting the Seattle-based biotech incubator, Accelerator.

Targacept said that it will eliminate 26 jobs, or 38 percent of its remaining staff positions, as it continues to try to cut costs following its second significant drug failure of this year.It will also close its laboratory operations by the end of 2012. At the beginning of the year Targacept employed 142 people but after the failed joint development of a depression drug with AstraZeneca in March and the failure of an experimental attention deficit hyperactivity drug in September, the company decided to slash a significant number of its employees to save capital. The company will have 43 employees remaining after the latest round of cuts but expects to save $9.6 million a year starting in 2013. The company will take a $1.5 million severance and other charges in the fourth quarter. Burrill & Company, publisher of The Burrill Report, is an investor in Targacept.

U.K.-based Oxford BioMedica says it will end a mid-stage clinical trial of its prostate cancer vaccine TroVax because of slower-than-expected patient recruitment.To date, the company had only managed to recruit 26 patients for its trial as it dealt with the arrival of new products for the disease and other clinical trials targeting the same indication. TroVax had once been considered Oxford BioMedica’s most promising treatment, but suffered a setback in 2008 when it failed in a study for kidney cancer. The company, however, attempted to push through with tests in other cancer types and had hoped that TroVax would hold weight as a treatment for prostate cancer. Shares of the company fell more than 9 percent on the news.

NuPathe says it will lay off half of its staff as it attempts to conserve resources prior to January 17, 2013, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is expected to decide on whether to approve its experimental migraine patch. The job cuts should allow the company to raise cash and look for a partner to help commercialize the product should it be approved. It will also help the company allocate resources to other early-stage drug candidates. NuPathe is trying to raise about $28 million in a proposed financing. It expects the cost-cutting initiatives and the proceeds from the financing to be sufficient to fund its operations into the fourth quarter of 2013.

Novartis will discontinue further development of a long-acting injectable version of Vanda Pharmaceuticals’ schizophrenia drug, Fanapt, according to a securities filing. While Novartis has marketed Fanapt, Vanda’s lead product, since 2010, it also has exclusive rights to develop and commercialize other formulations of Fanapt in the United States and Canada. Fanapt won regulatory approval in 2009 but its sales have yet to meet expectations. Novartis did not give a reason for the discontinuation in its filing.