Aurora Biosciences Corp., of San Diego, said the patent infringement lawsuit it filed against Anticancer Inc., of San Diego, was settled. Anticancer was granted certain rights to use Aurora's green fluorescent protein technology in its MetaMouse program in exchange for undisclosed up-front and annual payments to Aurora, as well as royalties.
BioTransplant Inc., of Charlestown, Mass., said it will receive a $2.5 million milestone payment from partner Novartis AG, of Basel, Switzerland, related to their transplantation collaboration. The milestone involved inducing organ tolerance in a large animal model. BioTransplant said the milestone helps validate its ImmunoCognance, or functional tolerance, technology.
Cell Pathways Inc., of Horsham, Pa., and Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Inc., of Collegeville, Pa., entered a collaboration to conduct trials combining CPI's Aptosyn and RPR's Taxotere, initially - along with carboplatin - in non-small- cell lung cancer. The companies will share the costs of the studies and retain all rights to their products.
Chiron Corp., of Emeryville, Calif., licensed hepatitis C patent rights to Abbott Laboratories, of Abbott Park, Ill., for use in nucleic acid diagnostics. Chiron, which retains the right to grant additional limited licenses, will receive an up-front fee and a milestone payment upon the first commercial sale, as well as royalties.
Cel-Sci Corp., of Vienna, Va., formed a separate entity, MaxPharma, to develop its L.E.A.P.S. technology, which is designed to activate the immune system in specific ways to fight various diseases. The company said it's in discussions with third parties that might be interested in helping finance MaxPharma. Cel-Sci, which intends to retain a significant stake in the new entity, said the move will allow it to concentrate more on its lead development product, Multikine.
Gene Logic Inc., of Gaithersburg, Md., and UCB Research Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., signed an agreement to develop a custom gene expression database for discovery of drugs for asthma and allergies, and evaluate resulting therapeutic targets. Gene Logic will apply its READS technology and GeneChip probe arrays from Affymetrix Inc. to study gene expression profiles in mast cells. UCB has a method for isolating and growing human mast cells.
ImmGenics Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Vancouver, British Columbia, and Genzyme Corp., of Cambridge, Mass., singed an agreement under which they will use ImmGenics' SLAM technology to develop a high-affinity therapeutic monoclonal antibody to an undisclosed antigen. Terms were not disclosed.
ImmunoGen Inc., of Norwood, Mass., exercised the first of two put options available under its $45 million February 1999 license agreement with SmithKline Beecham plc, of London, for the humanized monoclonal antibody, huC242-DM1, for cancer indications. SKB purchased about 1.02 million shares for $2.5 million. (See BioWorld Today, Feb. 3, 1999, p. 1.)
Incyte Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., expanded its relationship with Schering AG, of Berlin, in a deal giving Schering access to Incyte's LifeSeq Gold assembled database in exchange for annual access fees. Incyte could receive future milestone and royalty payments.
Pharmacyclics Inc., of Sunnyvale, Calif., said investigators presented preclinical data on Antrin photoangioplasty showing the combination of far red light and Antrin induces apoptosis of macrophages and impairs growth and proliferation of both macrophages and smooth muscle cells. Separately, a peripheral artery disease patient in its Phase II trial of Antrin was treated at a live case demonstration at a conference in Washington.
Sequenom Inc., of San Diego, said the Agriculture Research Service of the USDA licensed its MassArray System as part of a program to discover and score single nucleotide polymorphism markers in livestock populations.