• Aclara BioSciences Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., appointed Thomas Klopack CEO and member of its board. From 1998 to 2002, Klopack served as chief operating officer of Aurora Biosciences. Aclara develops tools for drug discovery, genomics and proteomics.

• Astex Technology Ltd., of Cambridge, UK, entered an exclusive agreement with the Institute of Cancer Research and Cancer Research Technology, of London, the technology transfer company of Cancer Research UK, relating to the discovery of drugs against the enzyme protein kinase B. Astex and the Institute of Cancer Research established a joint research team to identify and develop drug candidates for indications in the oncology area.

• AVI BioPharma Inc., of Portland, Ore., reported preclinical results in its viral program, which focuses on single-stranded RNA viruses. The program uses the company's Neugene antisense agents to target that family of viruses. AVI believes its Neugene technology could be targeted against most of the domestic Homeland Security list of viruses for bioterrorism.

• Axcan Pharma Inc., of Mont Saint-Hilaire, Quebec, said its Photofrin product received Canadian approval for high-grade dysplasia associated with Barrett's esophagus. Axcan, which said it would launch the therapy in Canada by the end of the third quarter of fiscal year 2003, added that it expects to receive FDA and European approval this year. Orphan drug designation has been granted in the latter two markets.

• Axon Instruments Inc., of Union City, Calif., and Affymetrix Inc., of Santa Clara, Calif., entered an agreement to develop an instrument to scan a future generation of Affymetrix GeneChip microarrays. Based on Axon's ImageXpress automated cellular screening platform, the instrument would scan GeneChip arrays formatted in multiwell plates, a high-throughput array solution in development at Affymetrix Research Laboratories. Axon's ImageXpress technology also will enable four-color scanning of Affymetrix GeneChip microarrays and array plates.

• BD Biosciences, of San Jose, Calif., and a business segment of BD (Becton, Dickinson and Co.), and Molecular Probes Inc., of Eugene, Ore., reported that BD Biosciences Pharmingen launched a series of flow cytometry products incorporating Molecular Probes' Alexa Fluor dye technology, licensed under a recently completed agreement between the two firms.

• Berlex Laboratories Inc., of Montville, N.J., the U.S. subsidiary of Schering AG, of Berlin, and Allergan Inc., of Irvine, Calif., entered an agreement for the co-promotion of Berlex's new topical rosacea treatment, Finacea Gel 15 percent. The agreement calls for joint sales and marketing activities for Finacea, for which Berlex received marketing approval from the FDA in December 2002.

• Chiron Corp., of Emeryville, Calif., appointed Howard Pien CEO and president. He also joined Chiron's board. Pien will succeed Sean Lance, who served as CEO and president since 1998. Lance will continue to serve as chairman of the board. Pien assumed the role of president, pharmaceuticals international for GlaxoSmithKline plc, of London, in January 2001 and is a member of GSK's corporate executive team.

• CollaGenex Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Newtown, Pa., and Sirius Laboratories Inc., of Vernon Hills, Ill., entered agreements to jointly promote in the U.S. the former's Pandel (hydrocortisone probutate cream, 0.1 percent) and the latter's AVAR (sodium sulfacetamide 10 percent, sulphur 5 percent) product line. The deal aims to leverage CollaGenex's 100-person national sales force with Sirius' specialty sales force strengths in metropolitan areas of the eastern U.S. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Endo Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Chadds Ford, Pa., reported data at the American Pain Society meeting on its investigational drug, EN3202, an extended-release (ER) oral form of the opioid oxymorphone. Findings showed that moderate to severe chronic low back pain patients in the oxymorphone ER and oxycodone controlled-release groups experienced significantly lower pain intensity scores compared to placebo (p= 0.0001 for oxymorphone ER, p=0.0001 for oxycodone CR). No statistical difference was seen between the two active groups. A trial showed that oxymorphone ER 40 mg and 50 mg both provided statistically significant relief from pain, compared to placebo (p=0.012 for 40 mg; p=0.006 for 50 mg), though a 10-mg dose did not provide statistically significant pain relief vs. placebo. The product is developed in partnership with Penwest Pharmaceuticals Co., of Patterson, N.Y. Endo also released positive preliminary data from four pilot Phase IV studies suggesting that Lidoderm (lidocaine patch 5 percent) might provide pain relief and/or impact pain interference with quality of life in four chronic pain conditions - post-herpetic neuralgia; pain that results from shingles, for which it is FDA approved; low back pain; diabetic neuropathy and osteoarthritis knee pain.

• Genzyme Molecular Oncology, a unit of Genzyme Corp., of Cambridge, Mass., reported data at the SG Cowen Healthcare conference in Boston from two now-complete Phase I/II cancer vaccine trials in metastatic kidney cancer and metastatic melanoma. In the metastatic kidney cancer trial, four of 13 patients exhibited stable disease, one of whom remained stable for more than seven months from the start of vaccination. Immunologic responses were observed in a majority of patients. In the melanoma trial, immunologic responses were observed in a minority of the 11 vaccinated patients, though no clinical responses were seen. There were no related serious adverse events in either study.

• IGEN International Inc., of Gaithersburg, Md., said that the U.S. Air Force purchased IGEN's testing systems for the detection of biological agents in order to protect military personnel. The products are based on IGEN's Origen technology and are able to detect select biological agents within 30 minutes, the company said.

• Intrabiotics Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., received a bid from an investor to buy the company's proposed new issue of convertible preferred stock at a price 50 percent higher than an offer put forth by an insider group led by Chairman Ernest Mario. C. Robert Coates, who said he owns 4 percent of Intrabiotics' common shares, called Mario's proposal an unfair offer for the preferred stock and added that Mario is rushing the financing vote, scheduled for April 3. Coates also asked the board to offer the preferred stock to any interested stockholder on a pro rata basis on the same 50 percent higher terms. Mario and others in his group, including Tang Capital Partners LP, of San Diego, and Baker Brothers Investments, of New York, last month offered $3.5 million in exchange for newly issued convertible preferred stock and warrants to purchase common shares. (See BioWorld Today, Feb. 10, 2003.)

• Lexicon Genetics Inc., of The Woodlands, Texas, extended its OmniBank Universal agreement with Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Ridgefield, Conn. Boehringer Ingelheim will continue its access to Lexicon's OmniBank library through February 2004. It also will continue to have access to gene knockouts generated under Lexicon's patented gene targeting technologies with genetic alterations directed at specific drug targets of interest, and access to drug target validation data generated by Lexicon for specified targets. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

• Microfluidic Systems Inc., of Pleasanton, Calif., received a contract for $1.5 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, of Arlington, Va., as part of a collaboration with the University of California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It is the second year of funding from DARPA, which provided Microfluidic Systems with about $1 million in 2002. The effort is part of a larger DARPA program provided to LLNL to build an airborne pathogen detection and identification system.

• NeoRx Corp., of Seattle, said its common stock was transferred to the Nasdaq SmallCap Market effective Thursday. The stock will continue to be traded under the symbol "NERX." NeoRx elected to seek a transfer to the SmallCap Market because its common stock had not met Nasdaq's $1 per share minimum bid price requirement for continued listing on the National Market.

• The Parker Hughes Cancer Center in Roseville, Minn., said findings were published in the April 2003 issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy pointing to its discovery of a broad-spectrum recombinant antiviral agent active against HIV. Specifically, researchers reported that PAP (recombinant pokeweed antiviral proteins) show potent activity against HIV, including strains resistant to major anti-HIV drugs.

• Tranzyme Inc., of Birmingham, Ala., said researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham developed an assay that might lead to an AIDS vaccine capable of eliciting neutralizing antibodies that are more effective at blocking HIV-1 infection. The assay is based upon a sensitive recombinant reporter cell line developed by Tranzyme that permits entry and replication of HIV-1.

• Trimeris Inc., of Durham, N.C., and F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., of Basel, Switzerland, created a U.S. distribution program for Fuzeon (enfuvirtide), approved last week for HIV by the FDA. Because the drug's production remains under full capacity, the Progressive Distribution Program is designed to make Fuzeon available to as many patients as possible and to ensure uninterrupted access to the drug during the limited supply period. Trimeris and Roche, who jointly developed the drug, contracted Chronimed Inc., of Minneapolis, as their exclusive U.S. distributor under the distribution plan. Chronimed will be solely responsible for managing Fuzeon distribution during the progressive distribution phase. Concurrently, Trimeris and Roche released top-line details of preliminary 48-week data from the combined Phase III studies on which a European approval application is based. The early analysis showed that Fuzeon patients taking Fuzeon in combination with an individualized regimen of anti-HIV drugs continue to show a significantly greater reduction in HIV to below detection of less than 400 copies/ml (30 percent), compared to the individualized regimen only control arm (12 percent). Also, 80 percent of Fuzeon patients who achieved a reduction in HIV to below detection at 24 weeks maintained the response at 48 weeks.