• Advanced Magnetics Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., said it entered definitive agreements with certain institutional investors in connection with a private placement of its common stock, which will raise gross proceeds of $10 million. The company agreed to sell about 1 million shares at $9.55 per share. The investors also will receive warrants to purchase 261,780 shares at $15.50 per share. Advanced Magnetics develops superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles used in pharmaceutical products.

• Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., filed a shelf registration statement with the SEC for up to 7.5 million shares of common stock. The company has no immediate plans to offer or sell any shares of its common stock, it said. Ariad is focused on the discovery and development of medicines that regulate cell signaling with small molecules.

• Elan Corp. plc, of Dublin, Ireland, agreed to sell its remaining about 5.8 million shares of common stock of Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc., of San Diego, to qualifying institutional investors for net cash proceeds of $65.1 million. As a result, Elan will have disposed of its entire shareholding of about 14.5 million shares of Ligand for proceeds of $158.1 million. As announced in November, Elan sold about 2.2 million shares of Ligand common stock to Ligand for $20 million. On May 28, Elan realized about $73 million from the sale of 6.4 million shares. The aggregate carrying value of the shares, together with the carrying value of Elan's remaining shares of Ligand common stock sold Thursday, is $65.8 million. Elan expects to record a pretax gain of about $72.3 million in respect to the two transactions. The recent proceeds are part of Elan's proceeds from the divestment of assets outlined in its recovery plan in July 2002. (See BioWorld Today, July 10, 2002, and Nov. 14, 2002.)

• Human Genome Sciences Inc., of Rockville, Md., restructured financing arrangements for three capital construction projects, including its Traville facility, in accordance with new guidance issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board. The projects are located in Rockville, less than a mile from HGS's existing research campus at Shady Grove Life Sciences Campus. As a result of the restructuring, Human Genome Sciences' maximum restricted investment requirement has been reduced from $541 million to $291 million, which will be reached upon completion of the Traville facility. The Traville facility, its new research and development/corporate campus, is proceeding on schedule, it said, and the company expects to move into it in the third quarter.

• ImClone Systems Inc., of New York, filed its first-quarter earnings statement. It posted a net loss of $34.8 million, or 47 cents per share. The company had $228.9 million in cash, cash equivalents and securities available for sale as of March 31 - enough, it said, to maintain planned operations through at least June 2004. It also said the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel will notify the company as to when the "E" attached to its trading symbol - a result of not filing in a timely manner its 2002 annual report and 2003 first-quarter results - will be removed.

• IntegraGen, of Evry, France, appointed Jan Mous as CEO and chairman of the board. Mous previously was chief scientific officer of LION bioscience AG. Prior to that, Mous spent 15 years at Roche, where he played a key role in the initiation of the company's genomics program, IntegraGen said. IntegraGen identifies druggable targets for the treatment of complex diseases based on its genomics analysis expertise.

• Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., and Xenova Group plc, of Slough, UK, initiated a Phase I trial of MLN944 (also known as XR5944) in adult patients with advanced solid tumors. The study will be conducted at three centers in the UK and will include about 40 patients. MLN944 is a DNA-targeting agent that demonstrated antitumor activity in preclinical studies, both in vitro and in vivo, against a number of human tumor models.

• NeuroSearch A/S, of Ballerup, Denmark, said it completed five studies of NS2359 involving 125 volunteers, and the product was well tolerated. Based on the results and preclinical results, NeuroSearch expects that NS2359 can be used in the treatment of a number of CNS diseases. The company said it has a basis for continuing the development of NS2359 for the treatment of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

• Onyvax Ltd., of London, presented interim data from its Phase IIa trial in prostate cancer with Onyvax-P at the British Cancer Research Meeting 2003. Onyvax reported what it called encouraging findings from the first cohort of 28 patients in its study of Onyvax-P, a therapeutic cancer vaccine designed to stimulate a patient's immune system to seek and destroy tumor cells. To date, 20 of 26 evaluable patients have shown no evidence of clinical deterioration, with a median time to progression of the disease projected in excess of 48 weeks. The data showed about one-third of patients treated with Onyvax-P had a statistically significant decrease in the rate of prostate specific antigen release.

• Oxford BioMedica plc, of Oxford, UK, reported encouraging results from its ongoing Phase I/II trial of MetXia in breast cancer patients. The company also announced regulatory progress toward starting a Phase I/II trial of MetXia in pancreatic cancer. The Phase I/II trial in breast cancer is using an improved formulation of MetXia that increases the dose level, it said. The patient recruitment for the low dose is complete and data from the first patients showed that delivery of the therapeutic gene to tumor cells is more than 10-fold better than in the previous trial, and also that patients have an antitumor immune response. Also, the company proceeded with plans to take MetXia into a Phase I/II study in pancreatic cancer by seeking approval for the trial from the UK Gene Therapy Advisory Committee.

• Pluristem Life Systems Inc., of Israel, said it is moving its headquarters to Haifa, following its acquisition of an Israeli biotechnology company. Pluristem will be located in the MATAM Advanced Technology Center and will have three clean rooms and specialized equipment such as a high-level fluorescent microscope. Pluristem is a stem cell research firm.

• Senetek plc, of Napa, Calif., retained Cherry Tree Development LLC, of Minneapolis, to act as an adviser to the company for the licensing of Invicorp, Senetek's erectile dysfunction product, and the manufacture of Senetek's Reliaject autoinjector for use with Invicorp. Cherry Tree will assist Senetek in preparing evaluation materials and in negotiating licensing agreements with prospective licensees.

• VaxGen Inc., of Brisbane, Calif., responding to newspaper articles that claimed the company was planning to withdraw from its AidsVax Phase III trial in Thailand, said, "VaxGen has every intention of completing its Phase III trial in Thailand, including the final analysis, and announcing the preliminary results, as planned, in the fourth quarter of 2003. The clinical portion of the trial has already been completed."

• Xcellsyz Ltd., of Newcastle, UK, said it secured a £500,000 (US$835,000) second tranche of investment from existing investors. The tranche is part of the initial investment of £1.2 million made by UK-based NEL Ltd. and ITX Corp., of Tokyo, with a branch in London, in September 2002 and triggered by Xcellsyz achieving certain developmental milestones. The company focuses on drugs for diabetes and obesity.