• Abmaxis Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., and Tokyo-based Y's Therapeutics Co. Ltd. entered an agreement for the development of a human monoclonal antibody drug targeting a specific antigen that is overexpressed in many types of tumors. The antigen is associated with autoimmune diseases. Abmaxis will discover high-affinity human antibodies specific to the antigen and Y's will undertake further development of the products. Abmaxis gains rights to manufacture and market the antibody in China, while Y's retains rights in the U.S., Europe, Japan and the rest of the world.

• Adherex Technologies Inc., of Ottawa, Ontario, named William Peters chairman, replacing Mark Rogers. Rogers became the new lead independent director. Peters has served on the board since November 2002. He became CEO and vice chairman in February 2003. Rogers joined the board in November 2002 in conjunction with Adherex's merger with Oxiquant Inc., of New York. Adherex also appointed Arthur Porter to the board, while Emil Frej stepped down from his board position. Adherex is a biopharmaceutical company with four products in clinical development, including Exherin, a cadherin antagonist compound, and STS, a drug designed to protect against severe hearing loss.

• Atrix Laboratories Inc., of Fort Collins, Colo., said Canadian regulatory authorities approved Eligard 30 mg (leuprolide acetate for injection), a four-month, sustained-release prostate cancer product. Sanofi-Synthelabo Canada, a unit of Sanofi-Synthelabo SA, of Paris, will be responsible for marketing the product in Canada. Eligard 7.5 mg and 22.5 mg (one- and three-month products) were approved in Canada in November.

• AutoImmune Inc., of Pasadena, Calif., received a letter dated Feb. 24 from the Nasdaq Listing Qualification Staff notifying the company that its securities will be delisted on Thursday unless it appeals the staff's decision. The decision was based on the company not having an operating business and not providing evidence that it will acquire an active operating business in the near term. The company has requested a hearing. AutoImmune is focused on the development of mucosally administered therapies for autoimmune and cell-mediated inflammatory diseases and conditions.

• Avanir Pharmaceuticals Inc., of San Diego, was awarded an additional $750,000 grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a unit of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., for the company's Human Antibodies for Exposure/Protection from Anthrax project. It follows an initial $100,000 grant from the institute's Small Business Innovative Research program awarded in October. The combined grants are being used to develop Avanir's fully human monoclonal antibodies to anthrax toxins using its Xenerex technology.

• Cellectis SA, of Paris, relocated its laboratories and headquarters to a new facility in Romainville. The company now has more than 16,000 square feet within Biocitech technology park. Cellectis is focused on applying the technology of meganuclease recombination systems to in vivo genome engineering and genome surgery.

• CeMines Inc., of Evergreen, Colo., said it closed its initial round of funding through a private placement, though the company did not disclose terms and details of the transaction. The privately held company, which is developing its Molecular FingerPrinting technology for the early detection and treatment of cancer, added that with development of its next-generation cancer test ahead of schedule, discussions for a second round of funding are under way.

• Corixa Corp., of Seattle, agreed to grant nonexclusive rights to its recombinant TcF antigen to Abbott Laboratories, of Abbott Park, Ill., for potential use in the development of a blood-screening test to detect antibodies to Trypanosoma cruzi. The parasite causes Chagas' disease, a chronic, potentially lethal infection affecting 16 million to 18 million people worldwide. The agreement is one of six between the companies. Among the others, four provide nonexclusive cross-licenses to intellectual property owned by Abbott or Corixa concerning two different cancer-associated antigens. Abbott received nonexclusive licenses to develop certain diagnostic products and Corixa received nonexclusive licenses to develop cancer vaccines and therapeutic drug-monitoring products. In a separate agreement, Corixa granted Abbott nonexclusive rights to develop non-nucleic acid-based diagnostic assays intended to detect mammaglobin, a marker that appears to be overexpressed in breast cancer. All six agreements include payment of up-front fees, product development milestones and/or royalties on any product sales, though more specific financial terms were not disclosed.

• Dendrite International Inc., of Morristown, N.J., and Celltech Pharmaceuticals, a unit of Celltech Group plc, of Slough, UK, signed an international services agreement. Celltech will use Dendrite's Pharbase, a physician and health care organization database, and the ForcePharma sales effectiveness application for its home-office personnel, regional managers and representatives in Europe. Dendrite will provide implementation services, training, asset management, multilingual help-desk services and software maintenance to users in the UK, Scandinavia, Spain, France and Germany. Dendrite will continue to provide services to Celltech's U.S. sales force.

• Dharmacon Inc., of Lafayette, Colo., reported an expansion of its existing agreement to supply custom small interfering RNA reagents to Bayer Pharmaceuticals Corp., a subsidiary of Bayer AG, of Leverkusen, Germany, for use in target validation and drug discovery. The siRNA reagents are being designed using Dharmacon's SmartSelection and SmartPool technologies. During the first quarter, Dharmacon will supply Bayer with siRNA reagents for about 4,000 gene targets for research in several therapeutic areas. The SmartPool siRNA supplied by Dharmacon will be a gene-silencing platform used for Bayer's in-house target validation work. RNA interference, used for drug target identification and validation, employs siRNA sequences to silence the expression of specific genes targeted for study.

• Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Chadds Ford, Pa., entered a license agreement with MakScientific LLC, of Storrs, Conn., that gives Endo exclusive, worldwide rights to jointly develop and commercialize MakScientific's existing and future preclinical library of compounds with selective cannabinoid receptor agonist activity in pain and selected central nervous system disorders. Endo will make an up-front license fee payment, in addition to payments based on regulatory milestones, and royalties upon commercial sales. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Exponential Biotherapies Inc., of Amsterdam, the Netherlands, said its food safety division signed a contract with CatchMabs BV, of Wageningen, the Netherlands, for the large-scale commercial production of bacteriophages. Exponential has developed an approach to controlling bacterial pathogens in the food supply, enabling food producers to protect their products without agents such as antibiotics. CatchMabs will leverage its production capacity to produce the bacteriophages. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• First Horizon Pharmaceutical Corp., of Alpharetta, Ga., said it is proposing to make a private offering of up to $125 million principal amount of senior subordinated contingent convertible notes due 2024. The company said it also expects to grant the initial purchasers an option to purchase an additional $25 million of such notes. The company intends to use proceeds for future acquisitions of products, technologies and businesses, and for general corporate purposes. The notes will be offered only to qualified institutional buyers.

• Guilford Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Baltimore, Md., reported the publication of new data in the journal Circulation, demonstrating that the addition of Aggrastat injection, along with aspirin, heparin and coronary stenting, coupled with an aggressive early intervention treatment strategy for acute coronary syndrome (ACS), was associated with a statistically significant decrease in the rate of death, myocardial infarction or re-hospitalization for patients with ACS (p<0.0001), compared to early intervention alone. Aggrastat, a glycoprotein GP IIb/IIIa receptor antagonist, in combination with heparin is indicated for the treatment of ACS, including patients who are to be medically managed and those undergoing percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty or atherectomy.

• H3 Pharma Inc., of Montreal, submitted a new drug application to the FDA for Sanvar IR, a somatostatin analogue in an immediate-release formulation. Sanvar IR is to be used to treat esophageal variceal bleeding (EVB) to stop hemorrhage prior to endoscopic intervention and to prevent recurring bleeding during the critical five days following treatment. EVB is a life-threatening event with a high mortality rate that accounts for about 7 percent of episodes of gastrointestinal bleeding in North America and Europe. The global market for somatostatin is expected to reach $1.5 billion by 2005.

• Hemispherx Biopharma Inc., of Toronto, said the FDA authorized it to conduct a Phase II trial of Alferon LDO, Low Dose Oral natural alpha-interferon, in HIV-positive subjects in early stages of disease. The company expects to begin the randomized, dose-ranging study in the coming weeks. Its primary endpoints will include an increase or up-regulation in genes known to be mediators of the natural immune response using gene chip technology. Secondary endpoints will include the absolute CD4 count and plasma HIV/RNA levels. The trial might be expanded into other viral diseases.

• Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc., of San Diego, said Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. plans to advance LY519818 into Phase III studies to treat Type II diabetes. The oral drug is a once-daily peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) modulator that was discovered in a research collaboration begun in 1997 between Lilly and Ligand. The companies have advanced two other PPAR modulators into clinical studies: LY929 to treat Type II diabetes, metabolic diseases and dyslipidemias; and LY674 to treat dyslipidemias.

• MDS Nordion, of Ottawa, Ontario, reported the commercial availability of rhenium-186 (Re-186) and high-specific activity lutetium-177 (Lu-177). The company said the availability of the radioisotopes is in response to demand from the global nuclear medicine community for isotopes used in targeted radiotherapy research for the development of new cancer therapies.

• Memory Pharmaceuticals Corp., of Montvale, N.J., said it would sell 5 million shares at a range between $13 and $15 through its initial public offering. The company, which is developing drugs to treat central nervous system disorders, filed for its IPO late last year. (See BioWorld Today, Dec. 30, 2003.)

• Metabolex Inc., of Hayward, Calif., began a Phase II study of its insulin sensitizer, MBX-102. The study will enroll about 200 patients with Type II diabetes who are on insulin, but whose fasting-blood-glucose levels are not well controlled. The study will be conducted at 29 centers in the U.S. and Mexico. The company expects to complete it in early 2005. MBX-102 is a single optical form (enantiomer) of halofenate, a compound studied in the 1970s as a lipid-lowering agent.

• MGI Pharma Inc., of Minneapolis, received about $260 million after closing its previously reported private placement of senior subordinated convertible notes due 2024. Included in the total is about $35 million worth of notes sold to the transaction's placement agents. The notes will be initially convertible, under certain circumstances, into MGI's common stock at a rate of about 11.9 shares per each $1,000 of notes (or an initial conversion price of about $62.92 per share, based on an initial issue price of $747.62 per note), subject to adjustment on the occurrence of certain events. The initial conversion price represents a 30 percent premium over the Feb. 25 closing price of $48.40. The notes will bear cash interest at a rate of 2.25 percent per annum until March 2, 2011.

• Neurocrine Biosciences Inc., of San Diego, reported results from a Phase III trial of the modified-release formulation of indiplon that showed elderly patients with chronic insomnia who have sleep-maintenance problems achieved rapid sleep onset and maintained sleep. Efficacy results in total sleep time showed they were highly significant (p<0.0001 at weeks one and two), as compared to placebo, adding more than one hour to sleep time. Indiplon also demonstrated a highly statistically significant improvement in patient-reported wake after sleep onset (p<0.0001 at weeks one and two), a 40 percent improvement of one hour, compared to placebo.

• NexMed Inc., of Robbinsville, N.J., said it plans to begin a Phase III study of Femprox in China. The 400-patient trial is designed to test the cream's efficacy and safety in patients diagnosed with female sexual arousal disorder. The topically applied product incorporates alprostadil, a vasodilator administered through the company's NexACT transdermal enhancer.

• OncoImmune Ltd., of Columbus, Ohio, named Michael Luecke CEO. Previously he was CEO of two biotechnology start-ups, Clonetics Corp. and Angstrom Pharmaceuticals Inc., both of San Diego. OncoImmune is developing therapeutics for diseases such as multiple sclerosis and cancer.

• SciTegic Inc., of San Diego, expanded Pipeline Pilot deployment at London-based AstraZeneca plc from a single site, first licensed in 2002, to a global license for multiple sites around the world. AstraZeneca is using Pipeline Pilot in cheminformatics, primarily for enumeration of chemical libraries and compound profiling.

• Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, Calif., said findings published in this week's Annals of Internal Medicine showed that the drug combination Pegasys (peginterferon alfa-2a), a pegylated interferon, with Copegus (ribavirin), an antiviral medication, produced the most significant response rates ever achieved in patients infected with hepatitis C. More specifically, the combination treatment yielded a 61 percent sustained virologic response, the highest such response ever reported in a clinical trial for a pegylated interferon. Both drugs are from F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., of Basel, Switzerland, and the combination was approved by the FDA for treating hepatitis C in December 2002.

• SuperGen Inc., of Dublin, Calif., said results from a study of a low-dose outpatient dosing of Dacogen (decitabine) for injection showed activity in patients with a variety of hematological malignancies. The data appear in the current issue of Blood. As a result of the data, a larger Phase II study is under way. The primary mechanism of action for Dacogen in cancer is thought to be the modification of aberrant DNA methylation.

• Telik Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., said F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., of Basel, Switzerland, exercised its option to select active lead compounds identified through its collaboration begun in April. Telik identified the lead compounds with its TRAP small-molecule drug discovery technology to determine the molecules active against a disease target selected by Roche. Telik will receive a milestone payment for the achievement. TRAP is based on the principle that pharmaceutically active molecules work by interacting with a protein target.

• Tranzyme Pharma, of Research Triangle Park, N.C., is expanding its strategic alliance with BD Technologies, a unit of Becton, Dickinson & Co., of Franklin Lakes, N.J., for the development and commercialization of high-throughput assays for drug discovery. The companies began the alliance in September 2002. With the expansion, BD will continue to receive access to Tranzyme's gene delivery and expression technologies, and the companies will explore the use of Tranzyme's technologies in specific cell types. BD will provide research and development funding to Tranzyme, and it will have rights to market any products that come out of the collaboration. Tranzyme would then receive royalties.

• VaxGen Inc., of Brisbane, Calif., reported Phase I results at the International Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases in Atlanta demonstrating that immune responses to rPA102, its recombinant Protective Antigen anthrax vaccine, were comparable to that of Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed (AVA), the anthrax vaccine approved in the U.S. More specifically, rPA102 doses of 50 ug and 75 ug were comparable to AVA, despite a 10-fold greater amount of aluminum adjuvant in AVA. Findings also showed a relationship between the amount of rPA102 administered and the subsequent immune response, with antibody titers continuing to increase after the second and third administration of the vaccine candidate at each dose level. RPA102 was well tolerated, with no evidence of dose-limiting toxicity or reactogenicity at any dose.

• Xcellentis, of Ghent, Belgium, a wholly owned subsidiary of Innogenetics NV, reported top-line results from its open-label Phase II trial of LyphoDerm for the treatment of hard-to-heal venous leg ulcers. The study involved 193 patients. Patients treated with LyphoDerm (a human keratinocyte lysate in a topical formulation) were compared to controls receiving standard of care alone or standard with a topical formulation. Xcellentis' international advisory board defined the standard of care as compression therapy with a hydrocolloid dressing. The primary endpoint was the incidence of complete wound closure within 24 weeks, irrespective of ulcer recurrence during the trial. Results indicated that patients treated with LyphoDerm showed a 43 percent relative improvement over controls (p=0.11). The number of patients achieving 100 percent wound closure with LyphoDerm was 38 percent.