CAMBERLEY and BRIGHOUSE, England, December 17 /PRNewswire/ -- The largest survey of licensee opinion since the smoking ban reveals the massive investment made by pub operators to beat the loss of smoker business.

The survey responses from 2708 members of BII, the professional body for the licensed retail sector, and the Federation of Licensed Victuallers' Associations, revealed that licensees have spent millions creating attractive outdoor areas to keep their smoking customers happy, since the indoor smoking ban on 1 July 2007. The number with covered outdoor facilities reached 70% of all pubs an increase of almost 130%; and the number offering food - from sandwiches to full service menus - has increased steadily.

LONDON, December 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Misys plc (FTSE: MSY.L), the global application software and services company, today announces that it had been selected by UBI Banca International to help consolidate its international business. The Misys solution will enable the bank to improve efficiencies and business management across the group and ensure a consistent level of service to customers in Luxembourg, Spain and Germany.

CHICAGO and LONDON, December 17 /PRNewswire/ --

- Clients gain point-click access to European equity algorithms through simple pull-down menu

Townsend Analytics (www.taltrade.com), a leading provider of multi-broker, multi-asset, multi-region and multi-route electronic trading solutions for the global capital markets, has integrated equity algorithms from leading European broker Cheuvreux into Townsend's flagship Execution Management System (EMS), RealTick(R).

PLANEGG-MARTINSRIED, Germany, December 17 /PRNewswire/ -- The Management Board and the Supervisory Board of the drug discovery and development company 4SC AG (Frankfurt, Prime Standard: VSC), with its headquarters in Martinsried, Germany, today published their joint statement on the public mandatory offer of Santo Holding (Deutschland) GmbH pursuant to Section 27 (1) of the German Securities Acquisition and Takeover Act (WpÜG).

LONDON, December 17 /PRNewswire/ --

- Upgrades to Mippin Made in Line With Consumer Demand

Mippin, the free mobile web discovery service from Refresh Mobile, which connects you to your favourite web content on the phone, has revealed their users top handsets for accessing the mobile internet in the run up to this Christmas this year. Nokia is the most popular and accounts for over 50% of all Mippin.com access, whilst the iPhone is showing great momentum, already breaking into the US top 10 Mippin handsets. The Motorola RAZR, KRZR are also proving popular.

The Top 5 handsets with Mippin users by country:

OXFORD, England, December 17 /PRNewswire/ --

- New Deal Provides a Further Opportunity for OGeS to Grow its Therapeutic Antibody Pipeline

Oxford Genome Sciences (UK) Ltd "OGeS" announces today that it has entered into a strategic collaboration with Amgen to discover, develop and commercialise novel therapeutic antibodies for the treatment of cancer. This new collaboration will enable OGeS to further strengthen its pipeline of fully human therapeutic antibodies (mAbs) in cancer based on the target discovery capabilities of its unique OGAP(R) database.