• Affitech A/S, of Oslo, Norway, signed an exclusive licensing agreement with the Research Foundation of the Norwegian Radium Hospital for two cancer-specific human antibodies discovered using the company's CBAS (Cell-Based Antibody Selection) technology. Affitech and NRH collaborated on the development of CBAS technology, which enables the simultaneous discovery of antibodies and their cognate targets. Affitech said CBAS has generated a pipeline of cancer-specific antibodies, and the first two have begun preclinical development. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Akubio Ltd., of Cambridge, UK, signed a joint development program with the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases to develop enhanced systems for the detection of bioterrorism agents based on Akubio's acoustic biosensor technology. The program received $3 million funding from the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and aims to produce a handheld portable device that can detect viruses, bacteria and toxins.

• BioInvent International AB, of Lund, Sweden, obtained approval in the UK to start the first trial of BI-201, a human antibody selected from the company's n-CoDeR antibody library for its ability to bind to the TAT protein. The Phase I/IIa trial will include 36 HIV-infected patients who have not received any previous treatment. Results should be available in the second quarter of 2006.

• Bridge Pharmaceuticals, of Beijing, and the National Foundation for Cancer Research in Bethesda, Md., formed a collaborative research program designed to accelerate cancer drug discovery and development. The partnership will allow NFCR and Bridge Pharmaceuticals to jointly fund, manage and direct cancer research programs in both the U.S. and Asia.

• Cambridge Antibody Technology Group plc, of Cambridge, UK, said an appeal will be heard by the Court of Appeal in London the week beginning Oct. 24 regarding its collaboration with Abbott Laboratories, of Abbott Park, Ill., on Humira, an anti-TNF antibody to treat rheumatoid arthritis. Abbott appealed a judge's decision stating that CAT is entitled to a larger share of the revenue (from 2 percent to 5 percent) from Abbott on Humira sales. After the judge ruled in January, Abbott paid CAT nearly $24 million in royalty arrears, CAT said, though CAT will not recognize the payment as company revenue until the appeal by Abbott is resolved.

• Cellectricon AB, of Gothenburg, Sweden, said that Dipsi Industrie, of Chatillon, France, will distribute the Dynaflow System for ion channel drug discovery in France. Dipsi will provide sales and technical support to the French market.

• Cytos Biotechnology AG, of Zurich, Switzerland, said its partner, Novartis Pharma AG, of Basel, Switzerland, obtained approval from the Swedish health authority to begin a Phase I trial with Immunodrug candidate CAD106, an immunotherapeutic for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Expecting to enroll about 60 patients, the study will assess the safety and tolerability of the product's ß-amyloid-specific antibody response. The achievement of that milestone will trigger an undisclosed payment to Cytos.

• DeCode Genetics Inc., of Reykjavik, Iceland, began dosing patients in a Phase II trial in asthma. The company has isolated a gene that encodes a kinase, which is the target of the tested compound developed by a third party for a different indication. The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial will enroll about 160 asthma patients with at-risk variants of the gene. Also, DeCode said that the class-action and derivative lawsuits filed in September and October 2004 against the company and certain of its officers and directors voluntarily were dismissed by the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs did not receive payment or fees in connection with the dismissal, the company said. DeCode is applying its discoveries in human genetics to the development of drugs for common diseases.

• Diatos SA, of Paris, and Servier, also of Paris, entered a research collaboration involving full-time employee support and a license option to apply the Diatos Vectocell technology to Servier's oncology research program in order to enhance the efficacy and safety of a Servier small-molecule drug candidate. The Diatos Peptide Vector intracellular/intranuclear Vectocell delivery technology allows direct intracellular delivery using cell-penetrating peptides.

• Elbion AG, of Dresden, Germany, raised an additional €10 million (US$12.6 million) in a second closing of its Series A financing. The capital brings the company's total funding to date to €35 million. New investors came from Singapore, Tokyo and Munich, Germany. Elbion concentrates on drug discovery and development for inflammatory and central nervous system diseases. The company's lead product is in Phase II trials. (See BioWorld International, Jan. 19, 2005).

• Enkam Pharmaceuticals A/S, of Copenhagen, Denmark, said its candidate for Alzheimer's disease, FGLL, was safe and well tolerated in a Phase I trial involving 24 healthy volunteers. The company now is seeking to partner the compound, a synthetic peptide that mimics the neural cell adhesion molecule.

• Fournier Pharma, of Paris, and ComGenex Inc., of Budapest, Hungary, have entered a long-term collaboration for the provision of exclusive chemistry services. ComGenex will provide the chemistry services over a three-year period and will be involved in the chemical design of the initial chemical structures. Further details were not disclosed.

• Fulcrum Pharma plc, of Cambridge, UK, agreed to provide development services for Syngenta Biopharma (SB). Fulcrum will progress lead projects to the clinic for SB, an in-house unit set up by Syngenta AG, of Basel, Switzerland, to apply its agricultural biotechnology expertise and infrastructure to the development of biopharmaceuticals.

• Genmab A/S, of Copenhagen, Denmark, acquired rights to 16 potential targets to treat non-steroid-dependent cancers of epithelial-cell origin, such as gastrointestinal cancers, from the insolvency administrator of Europroteome AG, of Berlin. Genmab purchased all of Europroteome's rights, and there are no milestone or royalty obligations. Genmab has started generating human antibodies to a unique target highly expressed on colon carcinomas.

• GenPat77, of Berlin, presented preclinical data on its TIRC7 program at the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies annual meeting in Boston and its CEACAM1 program at Digestive Disease Week in Chicago. TIRC and CEACAM1 are proteins involved in the activated immune response. GenPat77 is developing therapeutic strategies targeting those proteins for immune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease.

• GlaxoSmithKline plc, of London, formed the Centre for Excellence for External Drug discovery to focus on out-licensing targets and compounds that GSK does not have the resources to develop immediately, allowing assets that might have to wait for development to be progressed. The center also will subsume the Alternative Discovery Initiative, which manages in-licensed programs.

• Haptogen Ltd., of Aberdeen, UK, signed a collaboration agreement with DaeWoong Pharmaceutical Co Ltd., of Seoul, South Korea, to work on the development of antibodies targeted at bacterial infections.

• Hunter Fleming (HF), of Bristol, UK, agreed to a drug delivery research collaboration with Access Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Dallas, to combine HF's Alzheimer's disease treatment Oligotropin with Access's vitamin B12 oral delivery technology. In in vivo tests, Oligotrophin has been shown to be neuroprotective, and to have neurotrophic/neuro-repair activity. The orally available compound has completed Phase I studies and the aim is to improve oral bioavailability, enabling HF to start Phase IIa trials with the improved compound by mid-2006.

• ImVisioN GmbH, of Hanover, Germany, appointed Martin Steiner CEO. Steiner previously was CEO and founder of Apovia AG and EVAX Technologies AG. The company also reported that recently it initiated its operations as an independent biotechnology company focused on the development of immunotherapeutics based on its Modular-Antigen-Transport technology to treat allergic diseases. The company's lead product, IVN201, an immunotherapeutic to treat cat dander allergy, is expected to enter clinical trials in early 2006.

• Inpharmatica Ltd., of London, launched GPCR SARfari, a database containing chemical, natural ligand, structural and biological information on all 297 human rhodopsin G protein-coupled receptors for use in drug discovery.

• Insense Ltd., of Bedford, UK, said results on Oxyzyme, a product in development to treat chronic wounds, showed improvement and healing of about two-thirds of the wounds treated, including some that had been present for more than a year, within four weeks. The Oxyzyme system is contained within a hydrogel dressing and is designed to clean the wound, produce oxygen and release small amounts of iodine to kill bacteria and other microbes.

• Intercell AG, of Vienna, Austria, started a project to develop a novel vaccine against Lyme borreliosis. The company will work with five other European Union institutions and firms on the project, which is funded by the EU's Sixth Framework Program. Intercell will have exclusive rights to commercial exploitation of the intellectual property. Funding amounts to €1.4 million (US$1.8 million) for the next two years.

• IP2IPO Group plc, of London, acquired a 44.3 percent stake in start-up Oxford Nanolabs Ltd., of Oxford, UK, for £487,000 (US$920,430). Oxford's NanoPore technology is based on using protein pores for the detection of medically significant molecules for developing diagnostics.

• Lion bioscience AG, of Heidelberg, Germany, filed with the SEC to terminate the registration of its ordinary shares, eliminating its obligation to file certain reports. In December, the company voluntarily delisted its American depository shares from the Nasdaq National Market and terminated its American depository receipt facility. The company expects to realize significant cost savings as a result, and will continue to provide financial information as required by the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

• Meditech Research Ltd., of Melbourne, Australia, said results of two Phase I trials, published in the latest edition of Chemotherapy, showed that patients treated with intravenous hyaluronic acid in combination therapy suffered no unexpected adverse reactions. The studies evaluated two drugs developed by Meditech based on its HyACT (Hyaluronic Acid Chemotransport Technology) platform, HyDOX (doxorubicin and hyaluronic acid) and HyFIVE (5-fluorouracil and hyaluronic acid). Meditech said antitumor responses also were noted in several patients, though efficacy was not the primary objective.

• Morphochem AG, of Munich, Germany, completed its research agreement with Novartis Pharma AG, of Basel, Switzerland, with the licensing of certain compounds discovered by Morphochem for further development at Novartis. Morphochem has applied the MOREsystem, its design, synthesis and screening technology, to identify small molecules against three undisclosed targets provided by Novartis. In exchange, Morphochem received research funding and is eligible for future milestone payments on the licensed compounds.

• Ortec International Inc., of New York, and Hapto Biotech Inc., of Jerusalem, reported positive preclinical in vivo results generated through their joint venture, established to combine Ortec's and Hapto's technologies to develop a non-cellular biologically active enhanced collagen biomaterial to promote the attraction and attachment of healthy cells for application to the wound healing, reconstructive, cosmetic, orthopedic, tissue regeneration and dental markets. The results of the animal studies showed that Ortec's collagen sponge scaffold modified by attachment of Hapto's peptides had a higher cell-binding potential than untreated collagen.

• Protez Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Malvern, Pa., entered an exclusive licensing agreement with Japan-based Sumitomo Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd. to develop and commercialize SMP-601, Sumitomo's injectable antibiotic, in North America and Europe. Under terms of the agreement, Protez will provide development and commercialization milestones, as well as royalties on sales. Sumitomo maintains sole manufacturing rights and will develop the antibiotic in Asia. SMP-601 is a broad-spectrum beta-lactam antibiotic with demonstrated activity in preclinical studies against all of the multidrug-resistant Gram-positive bacteria, as well as many key Gram-negative organisms.

• pSivida Ltd., of Perth, Australia, said that "excellent" results have been received from the proof-of-concept study being performed in collaboration with Epitan Ltd., of Melbourne, Australia. Recent data indicated that a single injection of pSivida's porous BioSilicon technology successfully released Melanotan over a sustained period. It is for the prevention of sunburn injury in fair-skinned people and/or the prophylactic treatment of photosensitive skin disorders.

• Qiagen NV, of Venlo, the Netherlands, obtained an exclusive license to market and sell Maidenhead, UK-based Procognia Ltd.'s "on-chip" protein glycoanalysis technology. The new products will enhance Qiagen's Oproteome protein fractionation product line. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Roche Diagnostics, of Basel, Switzerland, and Exiqon A/S, of Vedbaek, Denmark, signed an agreement naming Roche Diagnostics as sole distributor of Exiqon's ProbeLibrary kits. ProbeLibrary products are kits for gene-expression analysis and target validation of microarray experiments using real-time polymerase chain reaction technology.

• Santaris Pharma A/S, of Copenhagen, Denmark, is initiating an international Phase I/II study of SPC2996 in the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia. SPC2996 is the first of a class of LNA-based cancer drugs known as RNA antagonists, and it is designed to reduce the level of Bcl-2 protein within tumor cells by binding and inactivating Bcl-2 messenger RNA to induce apoptosis. The trial will evaluate safety and efficacy in patients who have failed, or no longer respond to, chemotherapy.

• Serono SA, of Geneva, said data from a clinical trial of Raptiva showed that, with three years of continuous treatment, 73 percent of moderate to severe psoriasis patients achieved improvement of 75 percent or greater, according to the Psoriasis Area Severity Index. A second study, the CLEAR trial, showed that high-need patients benefit equally well from Raptiva. Results were presented at the 3rd Spring Symposium of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology in Sofia, Bulgaria.

• Sinovac Biotech Ltd., of Beijing, and LG Life Sciences, of Seoul, Korea, entered an agreement on May 12 to collaborate international and China sector marketing efforts and vaccine supply. The companies signed a letter of intent to pursue opportunities in three major areas: LG's international marketing of Sinovac's hepatitis A vaccine, Sinovac introducing LG's HepB vaccines into China and jointly working on Sinovac's influenza vaccine.

• To-BBB BV, of Leiden, the Netherlands, entered an evaluation and option agreement with Genmab A/S, of Copenhagen, Denmark, concerning its 2-B Trans technology, which improves drug delivery across the blood-brain barrier. Under the agreement, Genmab has obtained an option to use the 2-B Trans platform with up to two immunotherapeutic monoclonal antibodies. To-BBB would receive milestone payments and royalties on sales of brain-directed antibodies.

• Tripep AB, of Huddinge, Sweden, is raising SEK28 million (US$3.4 million) in a rights issue that has been fully guaranteed. Shareholders will be entitled to subscribe for one new share for every share held. The offering has been priced at SEK5.50 per share. The transaction is subject to the approval of an extraordinary general meeting, which will be held June 9. The proceeds would be used to fund the clinical development of Tripep's HIV drug candidate alphaHGA.

• Wilex AG, of Munich, Germany, reported positive results in long-term patient survival from a follow-up study of its Phase II trial with the antibody Rencarex. Thirty-six patients with Stage IV metastatic renal-cell cancer (RCC) were treated, and the study showed a median survival of 39 months in the extended treatment group and a two-year survival rate of 70 percent. The compound is in a Phase III trial in adjuvant treatment of patients with non-metastatic RCC after nephrectomy.