By Randall Osborne Editor Once upon a time, positive news from any biotechnology company meant a sure boost in the stock of most of the others. It seemed that investors – charmed by the newfangled science when, for example, strong Phase III data came in – couldn't get enough. But when the news for a single research project was bad, shareholders hated the whole industry. That gosh-darned fiddling with DNA, they said, just didn't work. Times have changed. Sort of. As the sector matures

Company* Product Description Indication Status (Date) (Symbol) CANCER AEterna Laboratories Inc. (Canada; AELA) Neovastat Orally bioavailable; activates apoptosis of endothelial cells; also inhibits matrix metalloproteinase and vascular endothelial growth factor Progressive multiple myeloma Patient recruiting for a pivotal Phase II trial continues in about 35 investigative centers in Canada, the U.S. and Europe (5/8) AEterna Laboratories Inc. (Canada; AELA) Neovastat

By Randall Osborne Editor Europeans are fond of comparing leaders of American industry to cowboys: rough-and-tumble types who will try anything once, hardy souls fit for harsh weather and long days of grueling work – even eager for the challenges. Most in the United States do little to dispel the image. In fact, it's accurate, for the most part. And it's especially accurate by comparison with overseas enterprise, which often turns out to be ultra-carefully considered, somberly overseen

I. FINANCING OF PRIVATE BIOTECHNOLOGY COMPANIES: $318.3M Company Location Date Amt. (M) Details AGY Therapeutics Inc. South San Francisco 5/7 $13 AGY raised $13M in its second round; investors included Alta Partners, GIMV Venture Capital, Forward Ventures, Jafco Co., Lombard Odier & Cie and Novartis Venture Fund Aptus Genomics Inc. Rockville, Md. 5/14 $6.2 Aptus closed its first round, raising $6.2M; Emerging Technology Partners LLC led the round and The Grosvenor Funds LLC and

TOTAL: $1,283.1M Company (Symbol)# Type Of Financing Number Of Shares, Units Or Warrants (M) Amount Raised (M) Investors; Placement Agents; Details (Date)@ Aastrom Biosciences Inc. (ASTM) Private placement of common stock 1.18S $1.1 Aastrom placed 1.18M shares with Isosceles Fund Ltd., raising $1.1M as part of its shelf registration(5/4) Adolor Corp. (ADLR) Private placement of newly issued stock 3S $60 Adolor raised $60M, selling 3M shares to institutional investors (5/30

I. COMMENCED TRADING IN MAY Company (Symbol)# Date Filed Date Comm. Shares/ Units (M) Price Shares Out (M) Lead, Other Underwriters Gross (M) Net (M) INITIAL OFFERINGS Cytomyx Holdings plc (UK; AIM:CYX)1 5/14 5/29 9.375 4 pence (US$0.06) 179.4 N/A #2 (US$2.8) N/A Notes: N/A = Not available or reported. 1 Cytomyx went public on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange. A total of 9.375M new shares were placed, but 55.4M shares were converted

By Randall Osborne Editor Stephen King, in his 1991 novel "Needful Things," renders excruciatingly well the struggle of protagonist Polly, as she endures the advance of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Polly, in bed, turns to hang up the phone. "A monstrous bolt of pain broke through the thin web the painkiller had stretched over her nerves and raced all the way up to her shoulder," he writes. "She had to bite down on her lips to stifle a cry . . . The pain was fully awake again, awake and

Company* (Symbol) University/ Non-Profit Type Of Agreement Product Area Details (Date) Aastrom Biosciences Inc. (ASTM) Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Evaluation agreement DC-1 dendritic cell product for use in vaccines to treat cancer The agreement is to conduct external clinical beta site evaluations of Aastrom's DC-1 dendritic cell product (4/16) Aastrom Biosciences Inc. (ASTM) Universitatsklinikum Charite and the University of Gottingen (Germany) Evaluation agreement

By Randall Osborne Editor Students of archeology know that the town of Rosetta, in northern Egypt, is where the famous Rosetta stone was found ­ a stone slab bearing marks and inscriptions that helped researchers figure out ancient hieroglyphics. So the phrase "Rosetta stone" came to mean any clue, breakthrough or discovery that opens the door to understanding a puzzle. Picking up the word, Rosetta Inpharmatics Inc. aimed its efforts at understanding toward the rich puzzle of the human

Company* (Country, Symbol) Company* (Country, Symbol) Type/Product Area Terms/Details (Date) Abgenix Inc. (ABGX) Chiron Corp. (CHIR) Expanded relationship allowing Chiron to use XenoMouse technology to generate fully human monoclonal antibody therapies against multiple cancer-specific antigen targets supplied by Chiron over several years Abgenix will receive milestone and license payments, plus royalties; Chiron will be responsible for product development, manufacturing and

By Randall Osborne Editor SAN FRANCISCO ­ For the cash-minded in biotechnology (and who isn't?), it all comes down to numbers: who got how much in the latest deal or in the most recent clinical trial's measure of statistical significance. There wasn't much disagreement about the importance of numbers, in panels at the fifth annual International Biotech and Infotech Summit, held on the Laurel Heights campus of the University of California. Fittingly, the leading sponsor of the event was

Company* Product Description Indication Status (Symbol) (Date) CANCER AVAX Technologies Inc. (AVXT) M-Vax and O-Vax Vaccines made from a patient's own cancer cells, modified with a hapten molecule that makes the tumor cells appear foreign to the patient's immune system to elicit a tumor-killing response Melanoma and ovarian cancer FDA commented in a letter the reasons the vaccines were put on clinical hold; the company expects to take three months to answer the FDA's

Company* Product Description Indication Status (Symbol) (Date) CANCER Ark Therapeutics Ltd. (UK)* EG009 Combination of a herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase gene in a modified adenoviral delivery vector, and ganciclovir Malignant glioma Phase I/IIa trial showed the therapy doubled patient survival time (4/4) Bavarian Nordic Research Institute A/S (Denmark; CSE:BAVA) MVA-BN tyr vaccine Orthopox vaccine Late-stage melanoma Company said primary data of its first clinical

By Randall Osborne Editor It's the disease that won't go away. Not AIDS ­ although that affliction fits the bill, too, and would have been the first coming to many minds, a few years ago when the HIV scourge (still rampant) made headlines. Cancer. It attacks practically every site in the body, and often moves with a virulence that chills even the most experienced of medical personnel, debilitating and sometimes disfiguring its victims before death, which can be cruelly slow. On the

Clinical Trial Update: April 2001 Company* (Symbol) Product Description Indication Status (Date) CANCER Abgenix Inc. (ABGX) and Immunex Corp. (IMNX) ABX-EGF Monoclonal antibody created with XenoMouse technology directed against the human epidermal growth factor receptor Kidney cancer Companies will initiate an 80-patient North American Phase II trial (4/18) AnorMED Inc. (Canada; TSE:AOM) and AstraZeneca plc (UK) ZD0473 Platinum-based anticancer agent Ovarian cancer AstraZeneca

By Randall Osborne Editor Like a pair of feisty tykes taking on the block's biggest kid, competitors in treating multiple sclerosis last week challenged Biogen Inc., in a war of words and trial data. One contender in the MS treatment space, Serono SA, hopes to steer the FDA's favor away from Biogen, and ­ by proving its Rebif (interferon beta 1-a) product works better than Biogen's Avonex (another form of interferon beta 1-a) ­ to block the latter's orphan drug status, effective until 2003

I. FINANCING OF PRIVATE BIOTECHNOLOGY COMPANIES: $425.55M Company Location Date Amt. (M) Details Active Pass Pharmaceuticals Inc. Vancouver, British Columbia 4/30 C$7.7 (US$5.01) Active raised US$5.01M; investors included GrowthWorks Capital, RT Capital, StrategicNova Canadian Technology Fund and the Western Seed Investment Fund Ardana Bioscience Ltd. Edinburgh, Scotland 4/18** #2 (US$2.87) Ardana raised US$2.87M in funding from UK Medical Ventures Fund Cellular Genomics Inc

Other Financings Of Public Biotechnology Companies: April 2001 Total: $95.16M Company (Symbol)# Type Of Financing Number Of Shares, Units Or Warrants (M) Amount Raised (M) Investors; Placement Agents; Details (Date)@ Bioniche Life Sciences Inc. (Canada; TSE:BNC) Financing from the Canadian government N/A C$17.2 (US$10.99) Bioniche entered into an agreement with the Canadian government for US$10.99M in funding for research and development (4/9) Cel-Sci Corp. (AMEX:CVM) Equity

Public Financing of Biotechnology: April 2001 I. COMMENCED TRADING IN APRIL Company (Symbol)# Date Filed Date Comm. Shares/Units (M) Price Shares Out (M) Lead, Other Underwriters Gross (M) Net (M) INITIAL OFFERINGS There were no initial public offerings in April Total: $0M Number of IPOs in April: 0 Average value of April IPOs: $0M Number of IPOs for 2001: 7 Total raised in IPOs in 2001: $265.75M Average value of IPOs in 2001: $37.96M FOLLOW-ON OFFERINGS Company (Symbol