Company Acquired** (Country) Acquired By Or Merged With (Country) Date Announced Date Completed Value*** (M) Terms/Details I. COMPLETED MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS Agouron Pharmaceuticals Inc. Warner-Lambert Co. (NYSE:WLA) 1/99 5/99 $2,100 Warner-Lambert exchanged each share of Agouron for 0.8108 to 0.93 shares Warner-Lambert (about $60 per share) Apex Bioscience Inc.* U.S. subsidiary of VitaResc Biotech AG* (Germany) 7/99 7/99 ND Apex will continue to operate under its
By Nancy Volkers Special To BioWorld Financial Watch The consolidation of the biotech industry has been anticipated, predicted and debated. Now, it appears to be happening. "A lot of us have talked about the need for consolidation in the biotech industry for a long time," said Peter Ginsberg, senior research analyst at U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray in Minneapolis. "We saw a pickup in overall activity, but we've really seen an acceleration recently." Actually, said Alex Zisson, senior
PARIS - Cerep S.A. has launched two new drug-discovery tools, a drug database called BioPrint and a chemical compound library called Odyssey 5000, both of which are available to third parties on a subscription basis. The BioPrint database consists of comprehensive data sets for a growing number of compounds, providing pharmacodynamic data, toxicity profiles, results of in vitro studies, and in vivo properties for each one. It is designed to give pharmaceutical companies the information needed
BioWorld International | Wednesday, August 18, 1999
ROSTOCK, Germany - A cellular sensor made from cells grown on chips will be tested soon in a large clinical trial initiated by a Rostock University research team. The Cell Monitoring System (CMS) monitors biopsied cancer cells to establish both clinical prognosis and optimal treatment. Ten years ago, the project started as a large research program funded by the German federal research ministry to develop an "intelligent slide," Bernhard Wolf, head of the biophysics chair at Rostock University
BioWorld International | Wednesday, August 18, 1999
LONDON - Cambridge Antibody Technology plc (CAT) has agreed to a deal with the U.S. genomics company Human Genome Sciences Inc. (HGS) to develop human monoclonal antibodies against genomics targets identified by HGS. CAT, based in Royston, will use its antibody isolation technologies to generate high-affinity, fully human antibodies specific for three human targets identified by and proprietary to HGS. No financial details were given, but HGS will pay for the research and CAT will receive
BioWorld International | Wednesday, August 18, 1999
SYDNEY, Australia - Researchers at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute here said they have cleared the way for a genetic treatment that will make ordinary muscle a better substitute for heart muscle. Announced recently in the scientific journal Nature, the breakthrough involves the growth factor IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor-1), which helps repair cellular wear and tear in ordinary skeleton muscle. Head of the project research team, Robert Graham, said his team has successfully
BioWorld International | Wednesday, August 18, 1999
PARIS - Monsanto has withdrawn funding for a joint research program it was conducting with Flamel Technologies S.A. aimed at developing an enhanced formulation of Monsanto's glyphosate herbicide, Roundup. The research was being carried out under the terms of a collaboration agreement signed on Dec. 30, 1997, and during the first year of the collaboration, Flamel, of Vinissieux, validated its delivery technology in greenhouse tests and filed seven new patent applications. The companies declined
BioWorld International | Wednesday, August 18, 1999
LONDON - Oxagen Ltd., which specializes in genomics, has agreed to a collaboration with two U.S. partners, PE Biosystems and Genomica Corp., to develop an integrated system for high-throughput genotyping. The companies said the effort will speed up pharmacogenomics studies in drug development. The deal brings together Oxagen's expertise in genotyping and functional analysis with Genomica's software tools and PE Biosystems' instrumentation. The partners will commercialize the system - which
BioWorld International | Wednesday, August 18, 1999
LONDON - A drug in clinical trials as an anti-HIV agent may turn out to belong to a new family of immunosuppressants. Researchers in Belgium have shown that azodicarbonamide can delay the rejection of skin grafts in mice. Michel Goldman, director of the Laboratory of Experimental Immunology at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles in Brussels, told BioWorld International: "Azodicarbonamide appears to work as an immunosuppressant by a new mode of action, and our experiments suggest that it
BioWorld International | Wednesday, August 18, 1999
JENA, Germany - An impressive network of small and medium-sized companies, research institutions, and major industrial firms has grown around the town of Jena during the last three years. The region, with traditional strength in the manufacturing of optoelectronic and precision instruments, glass and pharmaceuticals, has now become a center of innovation in biochip and high-throughput screening technologies. When the German government organized its BioRegio contest in 1996 to speed up the
BioWorld International | Wednesday, August 18, 1999
DUBLIN, Ireland - The Irish government is providing a major capital injection to university-based biological researchers as part of a wider program to boost the country's research capability. The Higher Education Authority, the body responsible for coordinating the third-level education sector, announced allocations totaling IEP 162.2 million (US$217.4 million), about IEP 65 million of which is earmarked for biological sciences research. A further IEP 50 million is available under a second
BioWorld International | Wednesday, August 18, 1999
JERUSALEM - The Israeli ministries of Finance and Industry and Trade have agreed to re-examine their policy on state support for private-sector research and development in hopes of agreeing on jointly set guidelines covering policy goals and criteria for investment. The biggest change will be to move research and development support from big companies to smaller ones. The move comes just after release of the second-quarter 1999 Kesselman & Kesselman PricewaterhouseCoopers Money Tree survey
BioWorld International | Wednesday, August 18, 1999
Company* Product Description Indication Action/Date** CANCER Abgenix Inc. ABX-EGF Fully human monoclonal antibody that targets the receptor for epidermal growth factor Various cancers Filed IND to initiate Phase I trial (7/19) Coulter Pharmaceutical Inc. and SmithKline Beecham(NYSE: SBH) Bexxar (tositumomab, iodine I 131 tositumomab) Radioimmunotherapy involving an antibody conjugated to iodine 131 that attaches to a protein found on the surface of B cells Relapsed and
By Nancy Volkers Special to BioWorld Financial Watch Biotech news, both good and bad, sends stocks soaring or plummeting usually in the short term, but occasionally such news can send a stock on a tear or a long-term dive. Lately, as investors begin turning away from Internet ventures, biotech has regained some of the spotlight, and stocks show it. The Nasdaq, on an upswing since October, rose from below 1500 to hit nearly 2900 in July, before leveling off near 2500. The Nasdaq biotech
Company* Product Description Indication Status (Date)** CANCER NeoRx Corp. Skeletal Targeted Radiotherapy (STR) Molecule that tightly binds holmium-166 and targets the bone marrow Multiple myeloma Presented Phase I/II data at International Society for Experimental Hematology meeting in Monaco (7/14) NeuroVir Therapeutics Inc.* G207 Genetically engineered herpes simplex virus designed to selectively infect and kill tumor cells while not invading and damaging normal brain tissue
Biotrin International Ltd., of Dublin, Ireland, said its Parvovirus B19 enzyme immunoassay tests were cleared for sale in the U.S. by the FDA. The agency recommended approval for use in pregnant women. Cambridge Combinatorial Ltd., of Cambridge, England, agreed to a deal with Yamanouchi Pharmaceuticals Ltd., of Tokyo, to design and synthesize compounds aimed at two undisclosed targets. The company, which is a subsidiary of Oxford Molecular Group plc, said the collaboration included research
BioWorld International | Wednesday, August 11, 1999
LONDON - One of the UK's leading biotechnology entrepreneurs, Alan Goodman, has established a #20 million (US$32 million) venture fund, Avlar Bioventures Ltd., which will be sufficient to finance 10 start-ups. The first company to be backed by the fund is Intercytex Ltd., based in Manchester. Nick Pope, business manager of Avlar, based in Cambridge, told BioWorld International that #12 million already has been committed. "We are actively raising the rest of the money, and have started making
BioWorld International | Wednesday, August 11, 1999
DUBLIN, Ireland - Elan Corp. plc halted development of its humanized monoclonal antibody, Antegren, for application in an acute multiple sclerosis (MS) setting, following the release of preliminary Phase II data. However, Elan, of Dublin, will continue development of the drug for chronic treatment of MS and for treatment of Crohn's disease. "In acute, it was difficult for all sorts of reasons to see what we needed to see," said Thomas Lynch, Elan's chief financial officer. It took three to
BioWorld International | Wednesday, August 11, 1999
LONDON - The government is making moves to maintain the UK's lead in European biotechnology with a #6.45 million (US$10.33 million) scheme to enable academic institutions to collaborate in the commercialization of publicly funded research. Grants of up to #250,000 will be available to audit, manage and match intellectual property portfolios with potential industrial markets. This is a follow-on from a #2.34 million pilot scheme that concluded in 1998. Some 30 academic and charity research
BioWorld International | Wednesday, August 11, 1999
PARIS - The second National Congress of the French biotechnology industry association, France Biotech, will take place in Toulouse on Oct. 4 and will have as its theme "The Creation of Value." The conference in southwestern France will be divided into two parts, with the morning session devoted to creating value in France and the afternoon session to creating value in Europe and North America. They will be chaired, respectively, by Emile Loria, chairman of Toulouse-based Biovector Therapeutics
BioWorld International | Wednesday, August 11, 1999
Company Acquired** (Country) Acquired By Or Merged With (Country) Date Announced Date Completed Value*** (M) Terms/Details I. COMPLETED MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS Agouron Pharmaceuticals Inc. Warner-Lambert Co. (NYSE:WLA) 1/99 5/99 $2,100 Warner-Lambert exchanged each share of Agouron for 0.8108 to 0.93 shares Warner-Lambert (about $60 per share) Apex Bioscience Inc.* U.S. subsidiary of VitaResc Biotech AG* (Germany) 7/99 7/99 ND Apex will continue to operate under its