James E. Coutre, former president and chief executive officer of PerSeptive Biosystems Inc. of Boston, who was fired on June 15 by the company's board of directors, filed an amended wrongful termination lawsuit Monday against Noubar B. Afeyan, the company's president and chief executive officer. In the lawsuit, filed in Middlesex Superior Court, Coutre says that officials at the company violated his employment contract when they allegedly conspired in June to strip him of his authority. The
Cambridge Biotech Corp. of Worcester, Mass., will move manufacturing operations from its Rockville, Md., facility into its Worcester and Galway, Ireland sites. The consolidation will reduce the Rockville work force by about 25 positions immediately and by a total of 60. The company will take a one-time restructuring charge in the third quarter. (c) 1997 American Health Consultants. All rights reserved.
Bio-Technology General Corp. has begun a Phase II efficacy study of BioTropin, its recombinant human growth hormone in pancreatic cancer patients. Recent short-term studies have shown that cancer patients treated with Bio-Technology General's human growth hormone responded to the anabolic growth hormone. The company is also conducting clinical studies aimed at assessing the utility of human growth hormone in the treatment of HIV-infected patients and in the prevention of muscle atrophy in the
Biotech Research Laboratories said it was awarded a four-year contract for $450,000 from the University of North Carolina to test large numbers of plant derivatives to combat HIV. The contract is part of a grant the university was awarded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, part of the National Institutes of Health. The grant allows the company and the university to attempt to isolate and identify a variety of potentially therapeutic agents. The plants to be used
Elan Corp. plc of Athlone, Ireland, said the FDA has approved the manufacture of Cardizem CD capsules at its Athlone facility. Elan manufactures all Cardizem SR sold by Marion Merrell Dow, but has not yet started making Cardizem CD. Sales of Cardizem SR and CD in North America for the year ending Aug. 31 were about $515 million, up from $344 million for the previous year. (c) 1997 American Health Consultants. All rights reserved.
Harrier Inc. of Los Angeles (NASDAQ:HARE) said this week that it had filed three patent applications on its glycosylation technology for pharmaceuticals, which it co-owns with the University of Michigan. "Compared to the Ferrier glycosylation process (the prior art in this area), we use a different catalyst and a different reagent," Harrier President Kevin DeVito said. "You can't use the Ferrier process to glycosylate most of the drugs we're looking at," he said, "because it's too harsh
Interneuron Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:IPIC) reported Thursday the massed results of its extensive, international Phase III clinical trials on the anti-obesity compound dexfenfluramine. Charles Casamento, chief executive officer of the Lexington, Mass., company, summarized the trail results at Cowen & Co.'s meeting in San Francisco. Of the 17 double-blinded, controlled trials on the drug, there were "statistically significant differences between the treatment groups and the placebos in all
Organogenesis Inc. said Friday that this month it will begin expanded preclinical feasibility studies of ligament replacement using its dense fibrillar collagen (DFC) technology. The studies will be conducted at the Memorial Medical Center in Long Beach, Calif. Results from an initial feasibility study completed recently at Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine demonstrated that implanted collagen constructs provided for guided tissue regeneration, resulting in the formation of new
The general sell-off in the Dow Jones industrial average Friday registered as a minor inconvenience among biotechnology issues, as the two indexes of widely held industry companies fell but not as far. The Dow average slumped 53.76 points by the close of the session to close at 3,200.61, its lowest level in almost six months. Meantime, the Chicago Board Options Exchange Index of 20 biotechnology firms fell 2.24 points to close at 126.78, and the AMEX Biotechnology Index of 15 companies was off
VIMRx Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Stamford, Conn., has been issued a U.S. patent for the use of hypericin as an inactivator of viruses and retroviruses in blood units for transfusion, the company said Wednesday. The patent also covers medical devices and containers in which blood is stored or transported. VIMRx plans to apply the technology covered by this patent to the development of a system for preventing the spread of undetected viruses in blood through transfusion. (c) 1997 American Health
COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y. G- Viagene Inc. of San Diego will launch a Phase I clinical trial of its proprietary AIDS immunotherapeutic before the end of this year, according to Douglas J. Jolly, the company's research director. He made the announcement at a recent international Gene Therapy meeting here. The strategy "turns peoples' own cells into little vaccine factories," he added. A Los Angeles clinic has begun punching out small cylinders of skin (3mm. in diameter) from the arms of
Progenics Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Tarrytown, N.Y., has been awarded $50,000 under Phase I of a Small Business Innovation Research Program Grant by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The grant will allow Progenics to expand its AIDS vaccine program by developing a system to produce large quantities of gp120, a protein present on the outer surface or "envelope" of the human immunodeficiency virus. (c) 1997 American Health Consultants. All rights reserved.
Macronex Inc. announced Friday that it raised $4.5 million in a second round of private financing. The company will use the money to further develop its drug discovery efforts using the macrophage as a therapeutic target for the treatment of acute and chronic inflammatory conditions, such as sepsis, arthritis and asthma. The financing was led by Technology Leaders L.P., a venture capital fund based in Wayne, Pa. Macronex of Morrisville, N.C., raised $2 million in venture financing last year
Advanced Tissue Sciences (ATS) announced completion Thursday of its acquisition of Neomorphics Inc., a Massachusetts-based research and development group focused on human organ and tissue engineering in an exchange of stock worth $21 million. Under the terms of the agreement, all of Neomorphics' stock will be exchanged in two installments for ATS common stock. The first exchange, completed Wednesday, consisted of 682,300 shares of ATS common stock valued at $6 million. The second exchange, of
BiotTechnica International Inc. of Overland Park, Kan., has acquired Agripro Biosciences Inc.'s corn and soybean production facility in Tekamah, Neb. Terms were not disclosed. BioTechnica has projected increased corn and soybean production and distribution needs in the western corn belt. (c) 1997 American Health Consultants. All rights reserved.
Michelle Slade Associate Editor Poor market conditions may have contributed to the weak stock performance of some of the biotech companies completing initial public offerings this year, but some of the companies themselves may be at least partially to blame. Analyst Gregory Brown of Vector Securities in Deerfield, Ill., said that many of the companies filing IPOs this year "prematurely jumped through the open window." "For example, Telios (Pharmaceuticals Inc.) has interesting science, but
Cephalon Inc. said Wednesday that when Myotrophin, the company's lead compound for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and peripheral neuropathy, was administered daily by subcutaneous injection, it produced no significant side effects and was well-tolerated in healthy volunteers. In a Phase I safety trial, conducted in the United Kingdom with 48 healthy volunteers, Myotrophin was administered in four escalating doses with each dose given for seven consecutive days. (c) 1997 American Health
Raggio-Italgene SPA is disputing Temple University's decision this week to terminate its license to the Italian company for Temple's c-myb and c-abl oligonucleotide inventions. Temple said Raggio breached the licensing agreement, originally signed in January 1991, and did not satisfy the obligations of the contract. Specifically, Temple said Raggio -- Failed to perform specific obligations under the license, including not supplying the university with working antisense oligonucleotides
TSI Corp. (NASDAQ:TSIN) announced that Cell GeneSys Inc. of Foster City, Calif., granted it a non-exclusive license for a gene targeting technology to develop transgenic animal models for human diseases. TSI of Worcester, Mass., is developing a "number of transgenic animal disease models that rely on inserting foreign DNA into animals," said Munro Pitt, TSI's senior vice president. The technology, developed by Oliver Smithies and licensed exclusively to privately held Cell GeneSys by the
SyStemix Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif., appointed three senior executives. Stephen G. Marcus and Sue Gilbert were named vice president of medical and regulatory issues and chief financial officer, respectively. Didier Lanson was named vice president of European operations of SyStemix International, S.A.R.L. Marcus was director of oncology clinical research worldwide at Schering Plough Corp., Gilbert was vice president of corporate development for Syntex Corp., and Lanson was president and chief
James E. Coutre, former president and chief executive officer of PerSeptive Biosystems Inc. of Boston, who was fired on June 15 by the company's board of directors, filed an amended wrongful termination lawsuit Monday against Noubar B. Afeyan, the company's president and chief executive officer. In the lawsuit, filed in Middlesex Superior Court, Coutre says that officials at the company violated his employment contract when they allegedly conspired in June to strip him of his authority. The