Major pharmaceutical companies this week bristled at the suggestion of federal controls for drug prices. A congressional study of price increases for drugs, released Wednesday, was preceded last week by a "preview" press conference held by Sen. David Pryor, D-Ark., who sponsored the report with Sen. William Cohen, R-Maine. "The report adds to the mounting evidence that voluntary price restraints don't work," Pryor said. "The drug industry's track record just doesn't support their so-called
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Carl B. Feldbaum was named president of the new Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), the fruit of the merger of the Industrial Biotechnology Association (IBA) and the Association of Biotechnology Companies (ABC), the two organizations announced Wednesday. "I am delighted to have been selected to lead the new biotechnology organization," said Feldbaum, flanked by Tom Wiggans, president of the ABC, and Stephen Duzan, president of the IBA. "I sought the position first and
A Canadian subsidiary of Deprenyl Research Ltd., Bone Health Inc., announced Monday that it is completing due dilligence review of clinical studies of an osteroporosis drug candidate. The information was originally expected to be available to warrantholders by Monday. The analysis by Bone Care International Inc. of final data from studies at Creighton University in Omaha, Neb., concerns One- alpha D2. Bone Health intends to seek an increased interest in world rights to the drug, based on a
Companion bills introduced Wednesday in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate would create clear rules for granting biotechnology process patents. Since 1985, when the court ruling in In re: Durden established that biotechnology processes are not non-obvious, companies have had to seek process patents by arguing uniqueness, which involves differentiating a particular process from all others. Although the Durden ruling is notorious, a series of confusing and inconsistent court cases have
In developing non-immunogenic chemotherapy drugs, ImmunoGen Inc. has devised a new way to potentially target those drugs to cancer cells: an antibody humanized through a technique called resurfacing. "Resurfacing leaves the original antibody framework intact by changing only the surface-accessible regions of the antibody to make it appear human," explained Walter Blattler, ImmunoGen's vice president of research. In vitro cell culture tests have shown that the resurfaced mouse antibody linked
Viral Technologies Inc. (VTI), the jointly owned subsidiary of Cel-Sci Corp. and Alpha 1 Biomedicals Inc., has received a European patent on its HGP-30 AIDS vaccine, the companies announced Wednesday. The allowed claims of the patent, which bears the European Patent application No. 87304345.9, cover peptides from the p17 core protein of HIV, including HGP-30, the 30-amino acid peptide that is the key ingredient of the HGP-30 AIDS vaccine. Also covered are claims directed to immunogenic
United Biomedical Inc. of Hauppauge, N.Y., announced late Wednesday that it has filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of 2.75 million shares of common stock at $11-13 per share. The managing underwriters for the offering are Bear, Stearns & Co., Inc., Nomura Securities International. Inc. and Volpe, Welty & Co. United Biomedical (UBI) intends to use the proceeds for research, preclinical and clinical studies, facility
Prizm Pharmaceuticals Inc., a development-stage company located in San Diego, announced that it has acquired an exclusive license for proprietary melanoma diagnostic technology from the Whittier Institute for Diabetes and Endocrinology at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, Calif. Whittier's technology covers the isolation, characterization and use of a unique antibody against tumor cell fibroblast growth factor (FGF) receptors and the conjugation of the antibody to saporin, a cell
HemaCare Corp. reported last week an updated analysis of its Phase I/II clinical trial of passive hyperimmune therapy (PHT) for treating AIDS. "The revised data verify the promising nature of the preliminary data, namely that PHT enhances immunity through significant increases in T4 cell levels and shows a strong trend toward increasing survival in patients starting treatment with T4 cells between 50-200/cubic millimeter," said Joshua Levy, medical director of the Sherman Oaks, Calif. company
Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc. has lost an appeal of a patent infringement suit it filed against New Jersey-based Pharmacia LKB Biotechnology Inc. in a case concerning a method of purifying monoclonal antibodies. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the federal circuit affirmed a San Francisco jury verdict that invalidated Bio-Rad's patent. The judgment in favor of Pharmacia had been entered in April after a month-long trial. Bio-Rad filed suit in 1988 against Pharmacia accusing the company, which sells
Calgene Inc. completed a follow-on offering of 2 million shares of common stock at $14.75 a share, grossing $29.5 million. The offering represents the Davis, Calif., company's fifth round of public financing and was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Dec. 14, 1992. An overallotment option of 300,000 shares is still outstanding. Lead underwriters were PaineWebber Inc. and Montgomery Securities. Upon completion of the offering, Calgene had 24.2 million shares of common
Cytel Corp. (NASDAQ:CYTL) announced Tuesday that it had completed its secondary public offering of 2.8 million new- issue shares of common stock at $7.50 per share, grossing $21 million for the San Diego, Calif. company. Cytel ended up selling 300,000 more shares than it had originally proposed in its registration statement on January 14. This gives the firm 15.8 million shares of common stock outstanding; fully diluted that comes out to 17.9 million shares. The company has also granted the
Interneuron Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:IPIC) announced that it has licensed exclusive rights in the U.S. and Canada to CDP-choline from the Spanish pharmaceutical company Grupo Ferrer. CDP-choline, or cytidil diphosphocholine, is currently in early clinical tests in the U.S. for treating patients recovering from head trauma. These follow on the more than 40 clinical studies worldwide on the compound for treating head trauma as well as stroke, cerebral insufficiency, senile dementia and
Triplex Pharmaceutical Corp. announced Tuesday that it has been granted two U.S. patents on triplex technology. The first patent, number 5,176,996, to which the private company has exclusive rights, covers the rules that define the composition of synthetic triplex-forming oligonucleotides, the Woodlands, Tex. firm said. The second patent, number 5,175,266, which Triplex Pharmaceuticals co-owns with Houston's Baylor College of Medicine, covers the use and process for preparing oligonucleotides
U.S. Bioscience Inc. (AMEX:UBS) announced Tuesday that it has filed a new drug application (NDA) with the FDA for NeuTrexin (trimetrexate) for treating moderate or severe Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) in AIDS patients who are not candidates for trimethoprim/sulfamethozazole therapy. The West Coshonocken, Pa., firm licensed the compound trimetrexate from Warner-Lambert in August 1991, according to Robert Kriebel, senior vice president of finance and administration. "There are a number of
TheraTech Inc. (NASDAQ:THRT) announced Tuesday that it has filed an application with the FDA for approval of its transdermal nitroglycerin patch for treating angina. The Salt Lake City firm said that it is preparing to file a European counterpart. The product incorporates TheraTech's enhancer technology that allows bioequivalent dose administration from smaller patches than the products already on the market. TheraTech will produce the product in its new manufacturing facility, which should be
Forget $1 million mass spectrometers and $50,000 high- pressure liquid chromatography systems. Officers of a newly public carbohydrate-based biotechnology company think they can bring carbohydrate capability to the average researcher, clearing the last hurdle in examining basic biological components. "Nucleic acids, protein and carbohydrates are the three basic building blocks," said John Klock, M.D., president of Glyko. "When people are able to look at something they couldn't look at before
First, catch your mouse. Next, shave bare a small patch of skin. Then, from a micropipette, lay a drop of carcinogenic benzo(a)pyrene solution on a square cm of nude skin. Repeat once a week for up to a year. Then analyze the resulting malignancies by PCR and monoclonal antibody technologies for patterns of mutation in the gene sequence of tumor- suppressing p53. Histopathologist A. J. P. Klein-Szantos and his research team at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia did all of the above. They
Cephalon Inc. said Monday that it has licensed from Laboratoire L. Lafon of Paris exclusive rights to develop, market and sell modafinil in the U.S. and Mexico. Cephalon (NASDAQ:CEPH) of West Chester, Pa., sought licensing rights to the French pharmaceutical company's narcolepsy treatment to expand potential products it could market to neurologists, company representatives said Monday. Cephalon is also developing Myotrophin (recombinant human insulin-like growth factor or IGF-1), which is in
Univax Biologics Inc. announced Monday that it has decided to postpone its secondary offering of 2.5 million shares of common stock. The Rockville, Md., company (NASDAQ:UNVX) filed for the offering -- including an overallotment of 375,000 shares -- on Jan. 4. The managing underwriters are Prudential Securities Inc. and Montgomery Securities. "A significant amount of uncertainty in the market for biotechnology stocks has forced down the price of Univax's stock to an unacceptable level," said
Major pharmaceutical companies this week bristled at the suggestion of federal controls for drug prices. A congressional study of price increases for drugs, released Wednesday, was preceded last week by a "preview" press conference held by Sen. David Pryor, D-Ark., who sponsored the report with Sen. William Cohen, R-Maine. "The report adds to the mounting evidence that voluntary price restraints don't work," Pryor said. "The drug industry's track record just doesn't support their so-called