• Alteon Inc., of Parsippany, N.J., said that a Phase II trial of ALT-711 in endothelial function was initiated at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore under grants from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Md., and the Society of Geriatric Cardiology, also in Bethesda. The Phase II is an additional component to Alteon's ongoing Phase II programs for ALT-711 in systolic hypertension and heart failure, and is designed to extend and confirm positive findings from the Phase IIa Diamond trial of ALT-711 in diastolic dysfunction.

• Applied DNA Sciences Inc., of Los Angeles, entered a technology partnership agreement with Jantek Electronics Inc., of Temple City, Calif., a firm that focuses on job tracking, security access systems and data-collection devices. The companies will develop and market products integrating Applied DNA Sciences' DNA-embedded security solutions into software and security access systems for government and industry.

• Applied Molecular Evolution Inc., of San Diego, said its stockholders voted to approve the proposed merger with Eli Lilly and Co., of Indianapolis. About 99.7 percent of the 14.1 million shares that voted were in favor of the merger. Applied Molecular will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Lilly. The deal was worth $400 million when announced in November. (See BioWorld Today, Nov. 25, 2003.)

• AVAX Technologies Inc., of Overland Park, Kan., reported the publication of a scientific paper on studies of its autologous cell vaccine platform for the treatment of cancer. The paper was published in the Feb. 1, 2004, issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The paper is a follow up to previously reported clinical results on 214 patients with clinical stage III melanoma who received the AC vaccine after standard surgery. The overall five-year survival for the 214 patients was 44 percent. Researchers found that an immune response to unmodified autologous melanoma cells, measured by delayed-type hypersensitivity, was induced in 47 percent of the patients.

• BioDelivery Sciences International Inc., of Newark, N.J., entered exclusive negotiations with Defiante Farmaceutica LDA, a subsidiary of Sigma-Tau Group, of Rome. The parties intend for Defiante to incorporate BioDelivery's Biroal drug delivery technology into a new formulation of aspirin. The companies are negotiating for a license agreement to develop, manufacture, promote, distribute, sell and sublicense products containing the aspirin chochleates for all applications.

• BioTime Inc., of Berkeley, Calif., issued about 1.1 million units in exchange for $1.5 million of its Series 2001-A debentures. The units consist of about 1.1 million common shares and 535,712 warrants. The company has paid off the remaining about $1.9 million of debentures using a portion of the proceeds from its recently completed subscription rights offer. The company also received $600,000 from the sale of 428,571 units offered to certain persons who acted as guarantors of the subscription rights offer. It previously had received about $3.6 million in the subscription rights offer.

• Boston Biomedica Inc., of West Bridgewater, Mass., entered a $2.5 million revolving credit and security agreement with CapitalSource Finance LLC, of Chevy Chase, Md. The facility is secured by accounts receivable and inventory and will be used to finance manufacturing and repository facility improvements and for general purposes. BBI provides products and services to the diagnostics and life sciences industry designed to evaluate, monitor and ensure the quality of infectious disease test results, to improve the preparation of specimens for genomic/proteomic testing and to store and retrieve rare biological specimens.

• Cambridge Antibody Technology Group plc, of Cambridge, UK, said that Wyeth, of Madison, N.J., exercised an option to license CAT's antibody phage display libraries for in-house use. The libraries will support Wyeth's activities in therapeutic antibody drug discovery and development across a range of therapeutic areas. The option to license CAT's libraries was granted to Wyeth as part of the collaboration agreement entered in March 1999. The agreement at the time was expected to mean up to $70 million to CAT. (See BioWorld Today, March 31, 1999.)

• Cell Therapeutics Inc., of Seattle, said it is expanding its European commercial operations by hiring sales personnel previously trained and deployed by PharmaMar, a Madrid, Spain-based cancer company. PharmaMar closed the sales activities it had established after its initial cancer product failed to gain European marketing approval late in 2003. The company said it expects to have about 16 fully trained, field-based country managers and sales representatives in eight major market countries selling Trisenox, which gained European Commission approval in March 2002 for acute promyelocytic leukemia.

• CellzDirect Inc., of Tucson, Ariz., acquired the assets and expertise of HepatoTech Inc., of Pittsboro, N.C., including its new cell-culture facilities in Research Triangle Park, N.C. HepatoTech's focus has been to optimize the isolation and culture of high-quality hepatocytes from multiple species. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• CuraGen Corp., of New Haven, Conn., priced a private placement of $100 million aggregate principal amount of convertible subordinated notes due 2011, bearing an interest rate of 4 percent. The notes will be convertible into about 103.2 shares of the company's common stock for each $1,000 of principal amount of notes representing a conversion price of $9.69 per share, subject to adjustment in certain circumstances. The initial conversion price represents a premium of 37 percent relative to CuraGen's closing stock price Tuesday of $7.07. The placement of notes is expected to close Feb. 17. The company granted a 30-day option to the initial purchaser of the notes to purchase up to an additional $20 million aggregate principal amount of the notes to cover overallotments. The company said Tuesday it would privately raise funds. (See BioWorld Today, Feb. 11, 2004.)

• Exact Sciences Corp., of Marlborough, Mass., completed its previously announced public offering of 6.9 million shares at $6.75 each for net proceeds of $43.8 million. The amount includes the full exercise of the underwriters' overallotment option for an additional 900,000 shares. Merrill Lynch & Co. and UBS Securities LLC acted as joint book-running managers, while Thomas Weisel Partners LLC and Leerink Swann & Co. also participated. (See BioWorld Today, Feb. 6, 2004.)

• Incyte Corp., of Wilmington, Del., said it will offer $150 million of convertible subordinated notes due 2011 in a private placement to qualified institutional buyers. The notes will bear interest, and will be convertible into shares of Incyte common stock at a rate and price to be determined. Incyte expects to grant the initial purchasers an option to purchase up to an additional $50 million in notes. The company intends to use proceeds for general corporate purposes, including repayment of outstanding debt.

• Invitrogen Corp., of Carlsbad, Calif., completed its acquisition of BioReliance Corp., of Rockville, Md., through a cash tender offer of $48 a share. BioReliance has merged into an Invitrogen subsidiary, Baseball Acquisition Corp. Its shares have been delisted from the Nasdaq National Market. The companies signed the acquisition agreement in December, when the transaction was estimated at about $500 million, including the assumption of about $70 million in debt.

• Lipid Sciences Inc., of Pleasanton, Calif., said a delipidated retrovirus can elicit a broader and more robust cellular immune response than live virus at a much lower dose than is typically used for preventive vaccines. The finding, presented this week in a poster at the 11th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in San Francisco, supports the premise that the delipidating HIV has the potential to be used as the basis for developing an autologous therapeutic HIV vaccine.

• Nabi Biopharmaceuticals Inc., of Boca Raton, Fla., was granted orphan drug designation for its investigational product, Altastaph (Staphylococcus aureus immune globulin) for immediate protection against S. aureus infections in low-birth-weight infants. In 2003, Nabi initiated a Phase II trial in such infants designed to measure Altastaph's safety, S. aureus antibody levels, incidence of infection and to help define endpoints for a Phase III trial in the same population. The company anticipates reporting results by the end of 2004.

• Neurochem Inc., of Montreal, said the FDA designated the company's most advanced investigational drug candidate, Fibrillex, as a fast-track product for the treatment of secondary amyloid A amyloidosis. As a result of the designation, Neurochem will submit a request for a rolling new drug application for Fibrillex, enabling the FDA to begin review of portions of the application before the end of the ongoing two-year Phase II/III trial. The company is eligible for priority review by the FDA. Fibrillex belongs to the class of glycosaminoglycan mimetics, better known as disease modifiers.

• Norak Biosciences Inc. and Cropsolution Inc., both of Research Triangle Park, N.C., signed an agreement for the purchase of selected subsets of Norak's small-molecule compound library. Norak has assembled a library of more than 900,000 drug-like small molecules and is actively screening those compounds in its G protein-coupled receptor-based drug discovery program. Cropsolution will use the compounds in its agricultural discovery program.

• Progen Industries Ltd., of Brisbane, Australia, began a Phase II study evaluating its lead compound, PI-88, in lung cancer patients. The trial is the third of four Phase II trials the company is planning to conduct. The trial will involve 90 patients to test PI-88 in combination with Taxotere for the treatment of advanced non-small-cell lung cancer. The company said the PI-88 program is exploring synergies between the anti-angiogenic nature of PI-88 (a VEGF, FGF-1, FGF-2 and heparanese inhibitor) and Taxotere (Aventis Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Bridgewater, N.J.).

• Sangamo BioSciences Inc., of Richmond, Calif., and Edwards Lifesciences Corp., of Irvine, Calif., filed an investigational new drug application for EW-A-401, a therapeutic designed to stimulate the growth of normal blood vessels for the treatment of peripheral artery disease. The filing for the "Avenge" trial and other associated milestones triggered $1 million in milestone payments from Edwards to Sangamo. Pending FDA clearance, the Phase I/II Avenge trial is scheduled to begin in the first half of 2004.

• Serenex Inc., of Durham, N.C., signed a technology evaluation agreement with Aventis Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Bridgewater, N.J. The initial agreement gave Aventis the opportunity to evaluate the use of Serenex's chemoproteomics technologies within certain Aventis drug discovery programs as a means to focus on the identification of the best compounds to advance through drug discovery and development. Aventis will supply Serenex with cell lines and sets of small molecules, and Serenex will use its high-throughput unbiased Proteome Mining and Functional Proteome Fractionation profiling technologies to screen those compounds. Information generated by Serenex may be used by Aventis to choose the highest-quality molecules to progress through the next stages of drug discovery. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

• Silicon Genetics Inc., of Redwood City, Calif., entered a cooperative relationship with Affymetrix Inc., of Santa Clara, Calif. The companies will work together to integrate their respective technologies, designed to enable new levels of productivity and throughput in functional genomics research. In July, the companies concluded an agreement allowing Silicon Genetics to redistribute Affymetrix GeneChip probe-level data directly within Silicon Genetics' application software.

• V.I. Technologies Inc., of Watertown, Mass., completed its private placement of 11.1 million shares of common stock for gross proceeds of $10.9 million. Investors also received options and warrants to purchase additional shares. SG Cowen Securities Corp. acted as the exclusive placement agent. The company plans to use proceeds to fund the ongoing development of the Inactive Pathogen Reduction System for red blood cells and for general working capital purposes. (See BioWorld Today, Feb. 11, 2004.)