HAMBURG, Germany - Artificial skin is becoming a hot topic in Germany. By the end of last year, two biotech companies active in tissue engineering announced the launch of products to treat diabetic venous leg ulcers, burns and other skin wounds. Two million people in Germany suffer from chronic wounds, about 150,000 of them diabetics with venous leg ulcers, a serious and debilitating condition that occurs on the lower leg and is caused by venous insufficiency. According to an industry report by
BioWorld International | Wednesday, January 19, 2000
LONDON - The bioinformatics company Inpharmatica Ltd. signed its first license agreement, with Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research, for Biopendium, a database linking gene sequences with protein structure and ligand binding. The value of the deal was not disclosed but Chris Ashton, commercial director, told BioWorld International it exceeded the total investment in the company to date. "This deal could bring us to profitability, but we also have a significant investment program." London-based
BioWorld International | Wednesday, January 19, 2000
Company* (Symbol) Product Description Indication Status/Date** CANCER ImClone Systems Inc. (IMCL) and Merck KGaA (Germany) C225 Monoclonal antibody that targets and inhibits the epidermal growth factor receptor Advanced squamous cell head and neck carcinoma Expanded Phase III trial into Spain (12/2) Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc. (LGND) Targretin capsules Bexarotene; synthetic retinoid X receptors; oral formulation Cutaneous T-cell lymphoma Submitted marketing authorization
Company* (Symbol) Product Description Indication Action/Date** CANCER Aphton Corp. (APHT) Anticancer therapeutic designed to induce a directed antibody response against gastrin and other gastrin-related growth factors Gastric cancer Filed investigational new drug (IND) application (12/7) G.D. Searle & Co. Inc. (a unit of Monsanto Co.;NYSE:MTC) Celebrex Celecoxib; COX-2 enzyme inhibitor Familial adenomatous polyposis FDA granted adjunctive treatment approval (12/23) Guilford
Company* (Symbol) Product Description Indication Status (Date)** CANCER AVI Biopharma Inc. (AVII) Avicine Nontoxic vaccine that elicits a highly specific immune response to the human hormone and growth factor chorionic gonadotropin Colorectal cancer Completed Phase II trial (12/21) Biomira Inc. (BIOM) BLP25 Anticancer vaccine that incorporates a synthetic 25-amino acid sequence of the MUC-1 cancer mucin, encapsulated in a synthetic liposomal delivery system Non-small-cell lung
By Randall Osborne Editor SAN FRANCISCO "Data is king," one financial analyst told a sea of listeners at the wrap-up of the 18th annual Chase H&Q Healthcare Conference here. And it was the shift of biotechnology from a chemistry-based industry to an enterprise based on biological information that many used to explain whopper gains in shares during the last quarter of 1999 especially in genomics. "Winners long-term will deal with data," said Robert Olan, a Chase H&Q analyst who
Celltech Chiroscience plc, of Slough, UK, said that CMA-676, its treatment for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), has been assigned priority review status by the FDA. If approved, this will be the first in a new class of antibody-targeted chemotherapy. The NDA was submitted by the company's partner, Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories, the pharmaceutical division of American Home Products, under the trade name Mylotarg. AML is the most common type of leukemia in adults, with 10,000 new cases and 6,900 deaths
BioWorld International | Wednesday, January 12, 2000
SYDNEY - Biotech Australia is racing to develop two major biotech treatments after being bought out from the pharmaceutical company, Hoechst Australia Ltd. Formerly a wholly owned subsidiary of Hoechst, the Sydney-based company was acquired by a consortium of investors and Biotech's management team. No details were disclosed about the deal, but the company also announced that it intended to go public in the latter part of this year. Among other activities, Biotech has two treatments now
BioWorld International | Wednesday, January 12, 2000
Hamburg, Germany - Sequenom, of Hamburg and San Diego, will go public soon, the company said. Sequenom is planning to offer 5 million shares at between US$16 to US$18 on NASDAQ within the first quarter of 2000. Last week the company said one of its proprietary MassArray systems had been installed at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) of the National Institutes of Health. The unit will be used to analyze single nucleotide polymorphisms in human genes causing diseases, including
BioWorld International | Wednesday, January 12, 2000
Hamburg, Germany - MorphoSys AG, of Martinsried, Germany, released a novel antibody library in the fragment antigen binding (FAB) antigen format. Production of the library has been made possible by the agreement MorphoSys signed with BioSite Diagnostics, of San Diego, last month. (See BioWorld International, Dec. 29, 1999.) Under the terms of the contract, MorphoSys is allowed to sub-license the technology to its customers. As FAB is the part of the antibody that recognizes and binds the target
BioWorld International | Wednesday, January 12, 2000
PARIS - Neurotech S.A. has signed an agreement with CytoTherapeutics Inc. for the acquisition of the latter's encapsulated cell technology (ECT). Under the deal, intellectual property rights to ECT are assigned to Neurotech, although CytoTherapeutics retains certain non-exclusive rights to use ECT in combination with its proprietary stem cell technology, as well as in the field of vaccines for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. Neurotech is making an initial cash payment of $3
BioWorld International | Wednesday, January 12, 2000
LONDON - There was further consolidation in the UK biotechnology sector last week as Cambridge Genetics Ltd. (CGL) announced it is to take over Cambridge Drug Discovery Ltd. (CDD) with the aim of creating an integrated drug discovery company. The merger involved the acquisition of all of CDD's shares by CGL, in return for a minority shareholding of CGL. In addition, Oxford Molecular Group plc, which financed the start-up of CDD in 1997, received #1.65 million for its 20 percent stake. The deal
BioWorld International | Wednesday, January 12, 2000
HAMBURG, Germany - With the acquisition of Rapigene Inc. and a strategic alliance with Zeptosens, Qiagen NV (NASDAQ:QGENF), of Hilden, Germany, has paved an inroad into the high throughput SNP analysis market, one of the most dynamic areas of genetic research and medicine. "To enter this market has been part of our strategy for a long time," Peer Schatz, CFO of Qiagen, told BioWorld International. "We have always been prepared to acquire a technology with extraordinary performance and to step
BioWorld International | Wednesday, January 12, 2000
DUBLIN, Ireland - Danish neuropharmaceutical firm NeuroSearch A/S entered an alliance with Abbott Laboratories to discover and develop ion channel modulators for diseases of the central and peripheral nervous systems. Abbott, of Abbott Park, Ill., will have exclusive worldwide rights to any compounds that emerge from the program. NeuroSearch will receive royalties on eventual drug sales, plus up to US$17 million for each compound that successfully undergoes an NDA, with milestone payments
BioWorld International | Wednesday, January 12, 2000
LONDON - Parents of young children might agree wholeheartedly that reproduction ages you - but what about the rest of the animal kingdom? Two researchers in the UK decided to examine the observation that early reproduction leads to earlier death, using the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as their experimental animal. Their study is published in Science , dated December 24, 1999, in a paper titled "A delayed wave of death from reproduction in Drosophila." Carla Sgro and Linda Partridge, of
BioWorld International | Wednesday, January 12, 2000
I. FINANCING OF PRIVATE BIOTECHNOLOGY COMPANIES: $95.6M Company Location Date@ Amt. (M) Details Argonex Inc. (Series B) Charlottesville, Va. 12/7 $9.6 Argonex raised $9.6M in a second-round private financing; participants included lead investor Advent Capital, of London, as well as Healthcare Ventures LLC and Riggs Capital Partners Array Biopharma Inc. (Series B) Boulder, Colo. 12/7 $8 Array completed its second round of private equity financing; investors included Boulder
TOTAL: $451.6M Company (Symbol)# Type Of Financing Number Of Shares, Units Or Warrants (M) Amount Raised ($M)* Investors; Placement Agents; Details (Date)@ AVI Biopharma Inc. (AVII) Private placement of common stock ND $6.5 AVI sold $6.5M of common stock to five institutional investors who were granted the additional opportunity to invest $2.2M through the exercise of warrants; placement agents were European American Securities Inc. and Cruttenden-Roth; lead investor was The Tail
By Debbie Strickland Special To BioWorld Financial Watch Biotechnology stocks enjoyed a spectacular run in 1999, with the Nasdaq Biotech Index shooting up 102 percent and outpacing even the stellar 86 percent gain in the Nasdaq Composite Index for the year. Individual biotech stocks of sought-after companies jumped three- to seven-fold, and money raised by the sector more than doubled in 1999 to $11.3 billion. Of course, South San Francisco-based Genentech Inc. swallowed $5.3 billion of
December | November | October | September | August | July | June | May | April | March | February | January December - 2000 Company Company Type/Product Area Terms/Details Amersham Pharmacia Biotech Ltd. BioImage AS (Denmark) Collaboration to commercialize a cell-based screening technology based on green fluorescent protein Amersham Pharmacia gains an exclusive license to BioImage's European patent portfolio on GFP Amgen Inc. (AMGN) Oxford Assymetry International plc (UK
HAMBURG, Germany - Artificial skin is becoming a hot topic in Germany. By the end of last year, two biotech companies active in tissue engineering announced the launch of products to treat diabetic venous leg ulcers, burns and other skin wounds. Two million people in Germany suffer from chronic wounds, about 150,000 of them diabetics with venous leg ulcers, a serious and debilitating condition that occurs on the lower leg and is caused by venous insufficiency. According to an industry report by