Epimmune Inc., of San Diego, said it completed a merger with its former parent company, Cytel Corp., of San Diego. The stock began trading last Friday under the Nasdaq ticker symbol "EPMN." (See BioWorld Today, March 31, 1999, p. 1.)
Novo Nordisk A/S, of Bagsvaerd, Denmark, submitted a new drug application to the FDA for Norditropin SimpleXx (somatropin for subcutaneous injection), the company's liquid growth hormone preparation. Novo Nordisk is seeking an indication for long-term treatment of children who have growth failure due to inadequate secretion of endogenous growth hormone.
The Liposome Company, filed with the European Medicines Evaluation Agency for marketing clearance of Evacet, as a first-line treatment of metastatic breast cancer in combination with cyclophosphamide. The company filed with the FDA in late 1998. Evacet is a proprietary liposomal formulation of the anticancer drug doxorubicin.
Trimeris Inc., of Durham, N.C., said that patient selection and dosing started in its T122249-101 Phase I trial for T1249, the second of a new class of anti-HIV drugs that blocks the entry of the virus into the cells. Up to 60 HIV-infected patients will be enrolled at up to eight sites in the U.S.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., said its Japanese partner, Kissei Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., of Matsumoto-City, filed for approval there of Prozei (amprenavir; Agernase outside Japan), an orally administered HIV protease inhibitor, under Japan's fast-track process. Vertex received a $1 million milestone payment for the filing. The product is marketed in the U.S. by Glaxo Wellcome plc, of London, and Vertex.
Whitehead Functional Genomics Consortium, of Cambridge, Mass., granted a royalty-free license to the SNP Consortium to use a key technology developed to discover single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). The SNP Consortium, a collaboration of pharmaceutical companies and the Wellcome Trust, is funding the creation of a map of SNPs in the human genome. The consortium consists of Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, both also of Cambridge; Affymetrix Inc., of Santa Clara, Calif.; and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., of New York.
ZymeTx Inc., of Oklahoma City, said it will return its license of the HIV compound, ZX-0851, to the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. The company said the development time cycle was longer than originally anticipated.