By Lisa Piercey Business Editor The three-day 11th Annual Hambrecht & Quist Life Sciences Conference kicked off in San Francisco on Monday with more than 1,800 investors in attendance and standing room only crowds at many company presentations. David MacCallum, the firm's managing director of investment banking, said it was the "best-attended conference we've had." The investment firm's lead biotechnology analyst, D. Larry Smith, said attendance showed that investor interest in the
Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc. scientists reported on the relationship between the structure of an RNA target and the ability of an antisense drug molecule to bind to that target in a recent issue of the journal Biochemistry, the Carlsbad, Calif., company (NASDAQ:ISIP) said. Researcher Walt Lima and associates found that antisense compounds designed on the basis of target RNA structure can distinguish the RNA for a normal ras gene from that for a mutant form of the gene, termed Ha-ras, that is
DNA Plant Technology Corp. (DNAP) of Cinnaminson, N.J., said Monday that it has successfully used a patented plant-based selectable marker gene, the acetolactate synthase gene (ALS), to develop genetically engineered foods. The standard selectable marker gene used in genetically engineered foods has been the kan (r) gene, which is not derived from plants and can confer resistance to an antibiotic. It has been the subject of review by FDA regarding its safety when used as a food ingredient
Patients with chronic skin ulcers treated with Celtrix Pharmaceuticals Inc.'s BetaKine investigational growth factor therapy showed "significant clinical response" in initial clinical trials, the company reported Monday at a wound healing workshop at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. "Venous stasis ulcers are often resistant to a variety of therapies, including growth factors," said clinical instigator Martin Robson of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston
Robert Abbott, president and chief executive officer of Viagene Inc., will announce Wednesday at the H&Q meeting that his company has entered into a $9 million, three-year agreement with Miles Inc. of Pittsburgh to develop a gene therapy product to treat hemophilia A. Viagene, a privately held company based in San Diego, and the Pharmaceutical Division of Miles, will collaborate on establishing the feasibility of using retroviral vectors to treat deficiencies in factor VIII, the clotting
The Liposome Company Inc. (TLC) announced Friday that it raised $57 million in a preferred stock offering, the largest amount it has raised in a single offering. Hambrecht & Quist Inc. and Dillon, Read & Co. served as underwriters. The Princeton, N. J., company (NASDAQ:LIPO) hit its target amount in a selective market, Anne Van Lent, senior vice president, told BioWorld. The offering -- the first preferred stock offering since the company has been publically traded -- began Dec. 4 and ended
Xenova Group plc., a British biotechnology company, announced Friday that it has raised $30.3 million -- primarily from U.S. investors -- through a private placement under Regulation D of the Securities Act of 1933. Xenova believes this equity offering is the largest financing to date completed in the U.S. by a European biotechnology company. "Ninety-five percent of the investors were from the U.S.," said Louis Nisbet, Xenova's chief executive officer. PaineWebber Inc. acted as the sales agent
Repligen Corp. announced Friday that it has filed an investigational new drug (IND) application to begin testing recombinant platelet factor-4 (rPF4) in a Phase I clinical trial with patients undergoing cardiac catheterization. Fermented in e. coli extracts of the naturally occurring protein have been extensively tested in small animals, Ramesh Ratan, chief financial officer, told BioWorld. The human safety trial with rPF4, trade-named Replistatin, is the first in a series of clinical studies
United Biomedical Inc. announced Friday that FDA approved a Phase I trial in healthy volunteers of a synthetic prototype peptide AIDS vaccine. The prototype vaccine, described in an October 1991 issue of Science, produced higher levels of protective antibodies to a wider variety of AIDS virus strains over a longer period of time than other candidate vaccines tested by that time. The six-month trial in up to 36 people will allow the privately held Hauppauge, N.Y., company to explore how to
As the Association of Biotechnology Companies (ABC) and the Industrial Biotechnology Association (IBA) prepare to merge, their leaders, Thomas G. Wiggans, chief operating officer of CytoTherapeutics Inc., and Stephen A. Duzan, chairman and chief executive officer of Immunex Corp., have sent a strong letter to President-elect Clinton, urging him to attend to the industry's most immediate concerns. Capital formation is the premier item on the ABC/IBA agenda for Clinton, including provisions for
The chiefs of Association of Biotechnology Companies (ABC) and the Industrial Biotechnology Association (IBA) announced Friday that the two trade groups have agreed, in principle, to merge. The new group will be called the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). The action is subject to ratification by the membership of both associations at their respective annual meetings -- February for IBA and April for ABC. "I do expect it to be ratified by a landslide," said a source affiliated with
Immunodiagnostic company Biocircuits Corp. has filed for a secondary public offering of 2.5 million shares of common stock to speed development of clinical tests. The Burlingame, Calif., company (NASDAQ:BIOC) raised $9.3 million in an initial public offering last May. After the secondary offering, the company will have 10,577,918 shares outstanding. The company's underwriters, Hambrecht & Quist Inc. and Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., have an option to purchase up to 375,000 shares of stock to cover
Alliance Pharmaceutical Corp. announced Thursday that it intends to submit revised protocols to FDA in order to resume clinical trials of its perflubron drug products, Imagent BP and Oxygent HT. Last September, the company announced a delay in initiation of human studies with the two agents based on minor changes it observed in the lungs of certain animals species during routine preclinical tests. On the day of the announcement, Alliance stock (NASDAQ:ALLP) fell $4.75 a share, to $10. Alliance
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- At a breakfast roundtable here Thursday on biotechnology mergers and acquisitions sponsored by public accountants Coopers & Lybrand, the 190 attendees heard a leading industry executive put forward four reasons "Why Biotech Industry Will Consolidate." James P. Sherblom, chairman and chief executive officer of TSI Inc. of Worcester, Mass., and co-founder of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, told the audience that he would present "stuff you know but may not want to
Bio-Imaging Technologes Inc. said Thursday it intends to acquire a privately held multimedia medical communications company, TM Marketing, through purchase of its outstanding common stock. "This acquisition will help accelerate the commercial application of our medical image-processing technology," said James Conklin, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Bio-Imaging (NASDAQ:BITI). The company uses techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging, nuclear medicine, computed tomography
Biotechnica International Inc. (NASDAQ:BIOT) of Overland Park, Kan., announced that it has acquired NobleBear Inc., a producer and marketer of hybrid corn and soybean seed. (c) 1997 American Health Consultants. All rights reserved.
Emisphere Technologies Inc. on Thursday announced a collaboration with SciClone Pharmaceuticals Inc. to work on the development of oral dosage formulations for a number of existing and future SciClone products. Emisphere could receive milestone payments as feasibility and development steps are achieved. Emisphere also said it has filed with the Securites and Exchange Commision a public offering of 1.8 million shares of common stock (NASDAQ:EMIS), of which 1.5 million are being sold by the
CellPro Inc. announced Thursday that it received three end-of- the-year U.S. patent allowance notices for cell-selection technology it licenses from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. The Bothell, Wash., company (NASDAQ:CPRO) develops proprietary, continuous-flow cell-selection systems for therapeutic, diagnostic and research applications. The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, an independent, non-profit research institution, has licensed novel methods developed there to CellPro
Celltech Group plc announced Thursday that it has reached an agreement with a large corporate partner to develop potential therapies to block chemical messengers that mediate inflammatory disease and immune disorders. Celltech, a privately held British company, and Schering-Plough Corp., on behalf of several of its affiliated companies, said they have a collaboration and licensing agreement to develop and commercialize genetically engineered antibodies to selected cytokines. By blocking the
A Phase II clinical trial showed that a colorectal cancer imaging agent developed by Immunomedics Inc. was able to correctly identify colorectal cancer sites. The results were published in the January 1993 issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, the Morris Plains, N.J., company (NASDAQ:IMMU) announced Thursday. The prospective study of 62 patients with colorectal cancer showed that 91 percent of positive readings with the iodine- 123 labeled MAb-based product correctly identified colorectal
By Lisa Piercey Business Editor The three-day 11th Annual Hambrecht & Quist Life Sciences Conference kicked off in San Francisco on Monday with more than 1,800 investors in attendance and standing room only crowds at many company presentations. David MacCallum, the firm's managing director of investment banking, said it was the "best-attended conference we've had." The investment firm's lead biotechnology analyst, D. Larry Smith, said attendance showed that investor interest in the