The Liposome Co. Inc. on Friday said it netted $38.6 million in a secondary offering of 3 million shares of common stock priced at $13.75 per share. The stock (NASDAQ:LIPO) closed down 38 cents Friday at $14. The proceeds will be used primarily to continue development and clinical testing of the Princeton, N.J., company's self-funded products, including TLC-G65 and TLC C-53. G-65 is a liposomal gentamicin to treat Mycobacterium avium intracellulare, a common infection in AIDS patients. G-53 is
The Food and Drug Administration has given the green light to market Ortho Diagnostic Systems Inc.'s HCV 2.0 ELISA Test System for the hepatitis C virus, just one day after an advisory panel recommended approval of the second-generation screening test. Ortho is marketing the test, which costs about $3.50, for Chiron Corp. of Emeryville, Calif. Chiron (NASDAQ:CHIR) makes the three antigens that comprise the test. Test kits "went out the door in trucks today, and testing with the second
CellPro Inc. said Friday that its Ceprate SC Stem Cell Concentration System is being used in a gene therapy trial in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia. The Phase I/II trial, in collaboration with the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, will use Ceprate to enrich normal stem cells obtained from the bone marrow of CML patients for use in autologous bone marrow transplants. The first patient was enrolled on March 6. Concentrated stem cells will then be genetically modified
Synaptic Pharmaceutical Corp., formerly Neurogenetic Corp., has filed for an initial public offering of 2.5 million shares of common stock priced at $10 to $12 per share, the company said. Synaptic said it changed its name to reflect its focus on drugs that act at the synapse, the key site of signal transmission within the nervous system. The Paramus, N.J., company, founded in 1987, is developing drugs to modulate the functioning of the nervous system, focusing on disorders that have
John Byington, formerly a partner in the Washington, D.C., law office of Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro, has been named president and chief operating officer of Synthecell Corp and its wholly owned subsidiary, Genetic MediSyn, both of Rockville, Md. Synthecell founder James Hawkins will continue as chairman and chief executive. Privately held Synthecell manufactures custom synthetic DNA and peptides. Genetic MediSyn is focused on antisense technology. Stephan A. Duzan, chairman and chief executive
BioChem Pharma Inc. has announced that its 3TC compound, which is now in Phase I/II trials as a potential treatment for the AIDS virus, has been found active against the hepatitis B virus. Scientists at the Fifth International Conference on Anti-Viral Research in Vancouver, British Columbia, last week presented results on the activity of 3TC against hepatitis B in vitro and in animal models. 3TC was reported to be active in primates infected with the human virus. Dr. David Tyrrell of the
An FDA advisory panel on Thursday recommended that two second-generation blood screening tests for the hepatitis C virus be approved for marketing. Results of clinical trials of the new HCV tests were presented to the Blood Products Advisory Committee by Ortho Diagnostic Systems, which will market one of the tests for Chiron Corp. (NASDAQ:CHIR), and by Abbott Laboratories, which makes the second test. Chiron spokesman Larry Kurtz said the panel voted unanimously that the second-generation test
Scientists at Miles Research Center and their collaborators have retracted their transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease because other researchers have found amyloid-like deposits in non-transgenic mice of similar breeding backgrounds. It is the second mouse model of the disease to be withdrawn this month. Writing today in Science, Johns Hopkins researchers in Baltimore described granules that appear in the brains of non- transgenic mice of the C57BL/6 strain as they age. In an
The U.S. government is seeking to patent any human protein- encoding gene that includes the brain DNA sequences recently discovered by government scientists, according to the controversial patent application by the National Institutes of Health. The claims also include broad variations of the sequences, including probes, antisense oligonucleotides and vectors containing the gene fragments. The application, filed in February and obtained this week by BioWorld, claims slightly more than 2,400
Metra Biosystems said it has raised an additional $2.4 million in its second round of venture financing, bringing the total raised to $8.4 million. New investors in the second round are Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Metra's employees. All the original investors from the current round also participated, including Alpha Partners, Aperture Associates, Asset Management Co., Delphi BioVentures and Institutional Venture Partners. The Palo Alto, Calif., company was founded in 1989 to develop
Synthecell Corp. announced that it plans to acquire Vega Biotechnologies Inc. in a two-stage deal that will combine the companies' biomolecule manufacturing programs. Privately held Synthecell has purchased 5.1 million shares of Vega common stock, 65 percent of shares outstanding, for $500,000. If certain conditions are met, Vega will acquire on May 1 Synthecell's biomolecule program in exchange for 27 million shares of Vega stock valued at $13.5 million. When the deal is completed
DNA Plant Technology Corp. on Wednesday said it will bring its tissue culture-selected tomatoes to market by 1993, and has licensed from the USDA a gene-altering technology that it will use in genetically engineered tomatos that could reach supermarkets two years later. The Cinnaminson, N.J., company (NASDAQ:DNAP) had been developing a fresh market tomato for Campbell Soup Co. under an agreement that gave each company the right to develop the product. The soup manufacturer has not exercised
Ecogen Inc. said Wednesday that it has acquired the nematode bioinsecticide business of Bioenterprises Pty Ltd. for an undisclosed amount of cash and stock. Bioenterprises of Glenorchy, Australia, has commercialized one nematode product, its Otinem bioinsecticide. Sales figures weren't disclosed. "We're looking to broaden the business base and feel there's a nice synergy between our Bacillus thuringiensis products for foliar insects and the nematodes for soil," said John McIntyre, vice
Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc. has exclusively licensed Vical Inc.'s cationic lipids to use for delivery of antisense molecules. Isis (NASDAQ:ISIP) will pay royalties to the privately held gene therapy company, but other terms were not disclosed. Isis scientists have published on the ability of lipids similar to Vical's proprietary compounds to enhance the activity of antisense oligonucleotides in mammalian cells. The cationic lipids are "much simpler" delivery vehicles than liposomes or liposomal
Anergen Inc. released data on Wednesday that showed success of its selective T cell therapy in an animal model of the muscle disease myasthenia gravis. At the Keystone Symposium on Molecular and Cellular Biology in Taos, N.M., company scientists described their injection of rats with the receptor for the nerve messenger acetylcholine, a manipulation that created a syndrome of muscle weakness similar to myasthenia gravis. The injected rats subsequently responded to treatment with the company's
TheraTech Inc. said Wednesday that it has filed for an initial public offering of 2 million shares of common stock with a proposed price of $11 to $12.50 per share. The developer of drug delivery products said proceeds will be used to fund R&D, build manufacturing facilities and for working capital and general corporate purposes. The Salt Lake City company has six products in clinical development. Most advanced is its testosterone transdermal patch, which is in Phase III trials for male
Agouron Pharmaceuticals Inc. today was to announce that its scientists have designed an enzyme inhibitor that has shown anti-tumor activity in animal studies. The compound, AG-331, is a new inhibitor of thymidylate synthase. TS is a building block of DNA that is responsible for the rapid proliferation of cells. Using protein structure-based drug design, the researchers created a synthetic chemical compound that selectively inactivates TS by blocking a functionally important cavity on the
EuroCetus B.V. has received approval in Denmark to market Cardioxane, an adjunct therapy for use against cardiac side effects induced by anthracycline chemotherapeutics, the company said Tuesday. This is the second European approval, following Italian approval in February. Anthracycline-induced cardiotoxicity is relatively common. Doxorubicin and epirubicin, the most commonly prescribed anthracyclines, are widely used against cancers. As many as 2,000 patients receive anthracycline treatment in
WASHINGTON -- The National Institutes of Health has made public its controversial application for patent protection for fragments of DNA discovered by government scientists. Reid Adler, director of NIH's Office of Technology Transfer, on Tuesday told BioWorld that he has provided copies of the application to the Industrial Biotechnology Association (IBA), the Association of Biotechnology Companies (ABC) and the American Intellectual Property Law Association. The associations have made the
Two biotech companies ranked in the top 10 of initial public offerings by NASDAQ companies that flooded the market in the first two months of the year, according to data released Tuesday by the exchange. Sphinx Pharmaceuticals Corp. (SPHX) raised $75 million to place eighth and Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) collected $70 million to place ninth. Sphinx, a developer of drugs based on lipid second messengers, and antisense developer Gilead fell far behind leader TNT Freightways, an express courier
The Liposome Co. Inc. on Friday said it netted $38.6 million in a secondary offering of 3 million shares of common stock priced at $13.75 per share. The stock (NASDAQ:LIPO) closed down 38 cents Friday at $14. The proceeds will be used primarily to continue development and clinical testing of the Princeton, N.J., company's self-funded products, including TLC-G65 and TLC C-53. G-65 is a liposomal gentamicin to treat Mycobacterium avium intracellulare, a common infection in AIDS patients. G-53 is