• Advanced Bio/Chem Inc., of The Woodlands, Texas, completed the merger with Ciro International Inc., of New York. The name of the surviving company has been formally changed to Advanced Bio/Chem Inc. Advanced Bio/Chem will trade on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board under the symbol "AVBC." Advanced Bio/Chem has developed a set of technologies, processes and knowledge in the area of proteomics research and has produced discoveries of new disease biomarkers, it said. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• AmeriNet Inc., of St. Louis, renewed its immunoassay agreement with Beckman Coulter Inc., of Fullerton, Calif., through a three-year contract valued at $60 million that became effective June 1. The renewal includes pricing agreements for Beckman Coulter's entire line of immunoassay systems, test kits, supplies and services. Included in the agreement is the new UniCel DxI 800 Access immunoassay system, which began shipping in June 2003 and performs up to 400 tests per hour.

• Amgen Inc., of Thousand Oaks, Calif., and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, a division of Madison, Wis.-based Wyeth, reported that 5,000 patients were enrolled in the second phase of the RADIUS (Rheumatoid Arthritis DMARD Intervention and Utilization Study) program, making it the largest clinical trial to date to evaluate the impact of a tumor necrosis factor inhibitor in patients with rheumatoid arthritis in the U.S. For at least five years, the second phase of the RADIUS program will compare the tolerability, efficacy and treatment patterns of Enbrel in 5,000 patients with that of 5,000 patients treated with a variety of disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs.

• Applied Biosystems Group, of Foster City, Calif., reported the initial release of pre-formulated gene expression assays for researchers studying rats, saying the Rat Assays-on-Demand gene expression products now are available.

• Cel-Sci Corp., of Vienna, Va., said data from a Phase I/II trial of Multikine for advanced primary head and neck cancer would be published in an unnamed peer-reviewed oncology journal. Results showed that use of the immunotherapy drug prior to surgical intervention made the residual tumor cells more susceptible to follow-on treatment with radiation, and possibly chemotherapy. A second finding demonstrated that Multikine pretreatment increased the percent and absolute number of immune cells infiltrating the tumor bed, causing tumor cell destruction and necrosis. Separately, Cel-Sci filed a shelf registration statement with the SEC to sell, from time to time, up to $10 million worth of common shares.

• DarPharma Inc., of Chapel Hill, N.C., appointed Prabhavathi Fernandes a full-time consultant, new member of its board and its CEO designate. Jeff Segal, current president and CEO, will remain to help in the transition time and will become chief business officer when Fernandes assumes the roles of president and CEO. The company plans to file an investigational new drug application for its first-in-class Parkinson's disease drug in early 2004.

• DOR BioPharma Inc., of Lake Forest, Ill., executed an exclusive, worldwide license agreement with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas to license issued U.S. patent and pending patent applications pertaining to all injectable uses of novel recombinant ricin A chain mutants as vaccines to protect against poisoning by ricin. In January, the company announced an exclusive option agreement that covered the development of nasal, pulmonary and oral ricin vaccines. The vaccine candidate consists of one of the two subunits of the ricin toxin, which has been genetically engineered to eliminate both its enzymatic activity and its ability to induce vascular leak syndrome. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Endovasc Inc., of Montgomery, Texas, said its wholly owned subsidiary, Nutraceutical Development Corp., entered a product licensing agreement with Basic Research, of Salt Lake City, which will invest at least $2.5 million in developing, commercializing and marketing Endovasc's Muscle Mass Technology for nutraceutical products. Basic Research also will pay Endovasc a 10 percent royalty on all revenues generated by the nutraceutical products with a benchmark of $2 million minimum royalty beginning on the second year.

• FibroGen Inc., of South San Francisco, received a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., to support the development of new cancer agents targeting connective tissue growth factor (CTGF), which promotes angiogenesis. FibroGen will screen a library of antibodies for leads that bind to CTGF. Selected antibody candidates will be tested for their capacity to inhibit tumor growth.

• Genedata AG, of Basel, Switzerland, and the National Cancer Centre Singapore entered a collaboration in gene expression analysis for cancer research. The NCCS has licensed the Expressionist system for the analysis of microarrays. The Genedata platform will enable scientists at the NCCS to make use of data derived from high-density microarrays and other sources, Genedata said. Researchers at the NCCS will work on the identification of minimal sets of diagnostic marker genes for classifying tissues and different cancer types into subclasses. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Human Metabolome Technologies, of Tsuruoka, Japan, named Yoshihiro Ohtaki its interim president after its establishment as a spin-out from Keio University. Ohtaki also is the president of Biofrontier Partners, of Tokyo, a venture capital firm that invested in the new company. Human Metabolome's core business is based on a patent issued last year covering the combination of capillary electrophoresis and mass spectrometry.

• ImClone Systems Inc., of New York, received written notification from Nasdaq that the company evidenced compliance with the current requirement for continued listing on the Nasdaq National Market. As a result, its trading symbol will revert back to "IMCL" effective with the open of today's market. ImClone had been in noncompliance for failing to file its 2002 annual and 2003 first-quarter report in a timely fashion.

• Neurome Inc., of La Jolla, Calif., established a collaboration with La Jolla Pharmaceutical Co., of San Diego, to focus on proteins in the brain that selectively bind antibodies to double-stranded DNA found in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus. The collaboration combines Neurome's technologies with La Jolla's experience in discovering and developing therapeutics to treat the underlying causes of antibody-mediated diseases. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Novocell Inc., of Irvine, Calif., presented results of pilot studies of encapsulated islet cell implants in diabetic primates at the International Pancreas and Islet Transplant Association meeting in Dublin, Ireland. In the pilot series, five monkeys were implanted. In the second series, four baboons have been implanted to date. All animals were standard models of diabetes, requiring daily insulin injections to survive before islet cell implantation. After implantation, three monkeys and one baboon no longer required insulin injections for up to 10 months. Two other monkeys and three other baboons were able to achieve significantly reduced blood glucose levels with reduced insulin injections, the company said.

• Optive Research Inc., of Austin, Texas, named Robert Pearlman president and chief scientific officer upon its formation to commercialize technology developed in his lab at The University of Texas at Austin. The life sciences software company initially is offering 15 products designed for computational and bench chemists engaged in molecular design and discovery research.

• ParAllele BioScience, of South San Francisco, entered a collaboration to conduct a SNP genotyping study using its lab-in-a-tube technology for genetic research with Merck & Co. Inc., of Whitehouse Station, N.J. Under the Merck-funded study, ParAllele will develop assays, perform multiplexed genotyping and provide data analysis as well as develop certain platform extensions of interest to Merck. More specific terms were not disclosed.

• SuperGen Inc., of Dublin, Calif., said data from a 30-patient Phase II study suggested Nipent (pentostatin for injection), as part of a combination therapy demonstrated activity with acceptable toxicity in patients with relapsed or unresponsive indolent (low-grade) non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Nipent currently is approved as a single-agent treatment for patients with hairy-cell leukemia. The study enrolled 30 patients diagnosed with relapsed or unresponsive indolent NHL. Each patient received a combination treatment regimen consisting of Nipent, mitoxantrone, prednisone and bleomycin.

• Teijin Ltd., of Tokyo, and Ipsen Group, of Paris, signed a collaboration to develop and market four Ipsen products in Japan and Teijin's anti-gout agent TMX-67 in Europe. Teijin will support Ipsen's presence in Japan with a mirror agreement for Europe. The four Ipsen products are a glucagon-like peptide-1 analogue, a Type II receptor selective somatostatin analogue, a parathyroid1-34 fragment analogue and a sustained-release formulation of a somatostatin analogue. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• The Immune Response Corp., of Carlsbad, Calif., and Hybridon Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., reported that The Immune Response Corp. is conducting preclinical studies of a second-generation HIV vaccine. The vaccine is based on Immune Response's whole-killed HIV vaccine technology in combination with one of Hybridon's immunomodulatory oligonucleotide compounds. The companies entered a nonbinding agreement for Immune Response to negotiate a license from Hybridon to use its technology, although there is no guarantee that a license will result. Hybridon's stock (OTCBB:HYBN) gained 20 cents Wednesday, or 24.7 percent, to close at $1.01.

• Theratechnologies Inc., of Montreal, completed the enrollment in its Phase II study of ThGRF, a growth hormone-releasing factor analogue, on functional recovery in aged patients suffering from wasting secondary to hip fracture surgery. The company expects to complete the treatment phase within three months. The multicenter study being conducted in Canada and Europe is aimed at evaluating ThGRF (2 mg) administered daily in about 100 patients of 70 years of age and over, for a period of 8 weeks, followed by an evaluation period of one month without treatment.

• Vasogen Inc., of Mississauga, Ontario, began enrollment in its pivotal Phase III ACCLAIM trial to evaluate its immune-modulation therapy in reducing mortality and morbidity in advanced chronic heart failure patients. The study, which will enroll up to 2,000 patients at 100 leading U.S. and Canadian cardiac centers, will conclude when a minimum of 701 events have occurred and all patients have been followed for at least six months. Its primary endpoint is the composite endpoint of all-cause mortality or hospitalization for cardiovascular causes - the time to first event. (See BioWorld Today, Nov. 20, 2002.)

• VizX Labs LLC, of Seattle, released the Version 2003.3 update to GeneSifter.Net. Version 2003.3 adds features that are designed to take advantage of its web-based design by integrating biological information from online sources, the company said.