• aaiPharma Inc., of Wilmington, N.C., said it is seeking consents from holders of its 11 percent senior subordinated notes due 2010 of proposed amendments to the indenture governing the notes. The consents would address the company's inability to file its Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2003. Holders of notes who deliver and do not revoke consents prior to the expiration of the solicitation on April 16 will be entitled to receive $10 in cash for each $1,000 in notes. The proposed amendments would temporarily suspend aaiPharma's obligation under the indenture to file periodic and other reports with the SEC. In other news, the company recently appointed Frederick Sancilio CEO. Sancilio, the company's founder and executive chairman, replaces Philip Tabbiner.

• Agilent Technologies Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., said it donated $150,000 in microarray kits to be used by Rhodes College undergraduates in the study of human diseases. The college will use the kits as teaching aids to introduce biology students to microarray technology and gene-expression experiments. Microarrays can be used to measure the activity of each expressed gene in a cell and to compare the differences between diseased and healthy cells.

• Cell Signaling Technology Inc., of Beverly, Mass., entered a distribution and co-marketing agreement with ProQinase GmbH, of Freiburg, Germany. CST will distribute the full line of ProQinase purified enzymes on a scale for high-throughput screening and research, as well as in fully configured and validated kinase assays for the drug discovery market. The combined reagents should enable scientists to more rapidly discover and develop new kinase inhibitors leading to targeted treatments for a range of diseases.

• CollaGenex Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Newtown, Pa., said it settled all pending litigation with United Research Laboratories Inc. and Mutual Pharmaceutical Co. Inc. CollaGenex paid Mutual $2 million, to be recorded in the first quarter of 2004. The companies also entered a license and supply agreement in which Mutual can sell a branded version of Periostat. CollaGenex will be the sole supplier of Periostat to Mutual at lower-than-average prices through May 2007. CollaGenex agreed it would not grant any license to sell Periostat in generic form to any third party during the supply term. CollaGenex had sued Mutual, alleging the company infringed CollaGenex's patents for Periostat to treat adult periodontitis. Mutual had submitted to the FDA an abbreviated new drug application seeking approval to market a generic tablet version of Periostat. In July 2003, Mutual sued CollaGenex alleging it was attempting to monopolize the market for low-dose doxycycline products.

• Oncolytics Biotech Inc., of Calgary, Alberta, closed a private placement of about 1.1 million common shares and 538,550 common share purchase warrants, raising gross proceeds of C$6.7 million (US$5.05 million). Each whole common share purchase warrant entitles the holder to acquire one common share of Oncolytics upon payment of $7.75 per warrant on or before Oct. 7, 2005. Following the transaction, the company has 28.6 million common shares outstanding.

• Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine researchers found a possible link between chlamydia, pneumoniae and Alzheimer's disease. In a paper published in the April 2004 issue of Neurobiology of Aging, the researchers demonstrate that the bacteria, when sprayed into the noses of mice not predisposed to amyloid plaques, can cause progressive deposition of plaques - creating a partial model of Alzheimer's disease. The researchers believe the bacterium could be a trigger mechanism for the pathology in Alzheimer's disease. Although Alzheimer's was once thought to be a hereditary disease, research has shown that only 2 percent to 5 percent of cases have a tie to genetic mutations, the college said.

• Tularik Inc., of South San Francisco, postponed indefinitely its annual meeting of stockholders, replacing it instead with a special meeting to consider and vote upon the merger with Amgen Inc., of Thousand Oaks, Calif. The date of the special meeting will be determined at a later time. The annual meeting will be held only if the merger is not approved. The companies announced in March their plans for Amgen to acquire Tularik for $1.3 billion. (See BioWorld Today, March 30, 2004.)