• aaiPharma Inc., of Wilmington, N.C., said it would not be able to file its Form 10-K by March 31, the deadline that includes the 15-day extension, and, as a result, is no longer in compliance with conditions for the listing of the company's common stock on Nasdaq. The company has requested that its stock remain listed if it can file its annual report by April 30. Following the news Wednesday afternoon, aaiPharma's stock (NASDAQ:AAII) lost half its value Thursday, dropping 96 cents to close at 97 cents. The company's stock lost 10 cents Friday, or 10.3 percent, to close at 87 cents.

• Abgenix Inc., of Fremont, Calif., said that Amgen Inc., of Thousand Oaks, Calif., completed patient enrollment in a pivotal trial evaluating panitumumab, an experimental fully human monoclonal antibody, as monotherapy for metastatic colorectal cancer patients who have failed standard chemotherapy. More than 460 patients have been enrolled in the trial. Separately, Abgenix said it has filed a resale registration statement with the SEC covering its 1.75 percent convertible senior notes due December 2011 and the common stock issuable upon conversion of the notes.

• Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., said experiments performed by researchers at Alnylam and collaborators from the University of Georgia demonstrated that a single low dose of Alnylam's lead candidate for respiratory syncytial virus, ALN-RSV01, an optimized siRNA, inhibits RSV replication both as a prophylactic and as a treatment when administered by intranasal delivery in a liquid form. ALN-RSV01 is designed to specifically silence an RSV gene required for viral replication.

• Argonaut Technologies Inc., of Redwood City, Calif., amended its definitive agreement with Biotage AB, of Uppsala, Sweden, to increase the purchase price to $21.2 million in cash and to include the sale of certain assets and the assumption of specified liabilities, including warranty service and maintenance and accounts payable of up to $350,000 associated with its remaining process development products and services. Biotage also will take on the employment responsibility for additional Argonaut employees associated with its process development business. On Feb. 21, the company entered a definitive agreement with Biotage under which Argonaut agreed to sell stock and certain assets of its consumables and flash chromatography business for about $19.9 million in cash.

• Australian Cancer Technology, of Sydney, Australia, achieved full recruitment in the company's 40-patient Phase IIb trial of its Pentrys idiotypic anti-p53 peptide vaccine in patients with hormone-refractory prostate cancer. The open-label Phase IIb study is designed to confirm the safety profile of Pentrys and to evaluate its clinical efficacy by measuring serum PSA responses.

• Biogen Idec Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., filed for a 15-day extension to file its Form 10-K to assess the impact of its recently pulled multiple sclerosis drug on the company's financial statements for the fiscal year ended Dec. 31. Biogen Idec's earnings initially were released in February, prior to the voluntary suspension announced Feb. 28 by the company and its partner, Dublin, Ireland-based Elan Corp. plc, in consultation with the FDA, of the marketing of Tysabri (natalizumab). Biogen said it expects its audited financial statements for 2004 will reflect adjustments to the previously announced results, estimating that the impact of the Tysabri suspension and related matters will decrease the company's 2004 income by no more than $15 million, resulting in overall income before taxes of not less than $78 million. (See BioWorld Today, March 1, 2005.)

• Crucell NV, of Leiden, the Netherlands, obtained an exclusive license to certain patents of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., to develop and commercialize recombinant vaccines against Ebola. The patents cover valuable vaccine components, such as the Ebola antigens and vectors.

• Dynavax Technologies, of Berkeley, Calif., and UCB Farchim SA, of Fribourg, Switzerland, have agreed to end their development and commercialization collaboration in seasonal allergy products, with UCB returning all rights to Dynavax, which reported that the ongoing Phase II/III trial of its AIC immunotherapy for ragweed allergy will be completed as planned. Dynavax will assume financial responsibility for all further development.

• Evotec OAI AG, of Hamburg, Germany, said its soon-to-be wholly owned subsidiary Evotec Neurosciences GmbH has in-licensed a compound from an unnamed third party that has completed a Phase I trial. Because ENS aims to re-position the compound in a central nervous system indication different from the one for which it originally was developed, the company is planning a small proof-of-concept trial before deciding whether to develop the compound further. ENS is not required to make any future milestone payments or conduct any trials beyond the proof-of-concept trial.

• NeoPharm Inc., of Lake Forest, Ill., synthesized a gemcitabine-cardiolipin conjugate with demonstrable antitumor activity in mice. The compound showed lower toxicity and improved antitumor activity in comparison to Gemzar, the company said. The data were presented at the 229th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, held in San Diego.

• Noven Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Miami, said the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida issued an order dismissing without prejudice a lawsuit filed against the company. The class-action suit was filed in August 2003 by purchasers of the company's stock during the period between Oct. 29, 2001, and April 28, 2003, and charged Noven with making false and misleading statements regarding the rationale and marketing strategies for approval of MethyPatch, a transdermal delivery system designed for once-daily treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

• NovoDel Pharma Inc., of Flemington, N.J., said results from its pilot pharmacokinetic trial of its lingual spray technology to deliver ondansetron hydrochloride, the active ingredient under the brand name Zofran (GlaxoSmithKline plc, of London) for chemotherapy-inducted nausea and vomiting, achieved its goal of demonstrating the ability to deliver ondansetron via the lingual spray technology and produce a similar pharmacokinetic profile to the marketed oral tablet. NovoDel said the trial also marked a milestone with licensing partner, South San Francisco-based Hana Biosciences Inc. Hana said it intends to file an investigational new drug application and to initiate a clinical program designed to support a new drug application that relies on data in previously approved NDAs. Hana has projected launching the product by 2007.

• Oscient Pharmaceuticals Corp., of Waltham, Mass., completed the expansion of its primary care sales force with the hiring of 150 new sales representatives. The 250-person sales team, led by 25 district managers, is calling on primary care physicians who account for 40 percent of fluoroquinolone prescriptions written for respiratory tract infections across the U.S.

• Palatin Technologies Inc., of Cranbury, N.J., and King Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Bristol, Tenn., reported positive results from a clinical study evaluating the effect of co-administration of intranasal PT-141 and Viagra in patients with erectile dysfunction. The duration of erectile activity measured after co-administration of each combination of PT-141 was significantly enhanced compared to that observed with the relevant dose of Viagra alone. On average, the co-administration of PT-141 and Viagra increased erectile activity by a factor of 5.3. The clinical effect was statistically significant in three of the four comparisons.

• QTL Biosystems LLC, of Santa Fe, N.M., introduced its Universal Development Kit for Kinase and Phosphate Assays following the release of additional tyrosine and serine/threonine kinases. The products provide a platform for developing assays for the two categories of kinases that make up the human kinome.

• Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, Calif., said researchers discovered that a protein that normally helps hold the skin intact also is needed by skin cancer cells as they spread to other regions of the body. The work, which appears in the March 18, 2005, issue of Science, is the first published research implicating the protein, collagen VII, in cancer. Researchers said the findings came about because of statistics that show two-thirds of children with dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa, a blistering skin disorder caused by an altered or missing collagen VII protein, also develop squamous-cell carcinoma.

• TorreyPines Therapeutics Inc., of San Diego, signed a research agreement with Tokyo-based Eisai Co. Ltd. involving Alzheimer's drug discovery. TorreyPines will help to discover modifying agents of the disease based on the study of the mechanism of pathogenesis. Eisai will have exclusive rights of first negotiation and refusal for validated compounds discovered through the research. Financial terms were not disclosed. The agreement marks the companies' second collaboration. TorreyPines, then doing business as Neurogenetics Inc., and Eisai signed an agreement in 2002 to focus on the discovery of genes responsible for late-onset Alzheimer's disease.

• Transgenomic Inc., of Omaha, Neb., concluded negotiations with Laurus Master Fund Ltd. in New York aimed at firming up its financing for ongoing operations. Laurus has agreed to extend until March 31, 2006, a previously issued waiver to the borrowing base limitation contained in its revolving facility with Transgenomic, making the full $7.5 million revolving facility available throughout 2005. In addition, Laurus agreed to convert about $1.8 million outstanding on the revolving note to equity, freeing up that amount for future needs.

• Xenomics Inc., of New York, announced clinical results that demonstrate the ability to detect tuberculosis Transrenal-DNA in the urine of infected patients. The company said the application of its technology platform might enable development of more sensitive and accurate testing methods that require only a urine specimen. Xenomics also reported the ability to use a single specimen to detect both HIV and the common tuberculosis infections that occur in immune-compromised AIDS patients. The discovery was made at the company's joint venture with the National Institute for Infectious Diseases "Lazzaro Spallanzani" in Rome.