• AcroMetix Corp., of Benicia, Calif., signed an exclusive agreement with Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, of Boca Raton, Fla., to develop ViroSure quality-control products for infectious disease testing to clinical laboratories and blood screening organizations. Nabi will develop and manufacture the products while AcroMetrix will focus on marketing and distribution. Financial details were not disclosed.

• Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cheshire, Conn., said it completed enrollment in its Phase IIb trial of eculizumab, a humanized monoclonal antibody C5 complement inhibitor, in rheumatoid arthritis patients. The double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study enrolled about 350 patients with mild to moderate disease undergoing treatment with moderate doses of methotrexate or leflunomide.

• Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc., of San Diego, acquired from Restoragen Inc., of Lincoln, Neb., rights to a Phase II program that uses continuous infusion of glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) to treat congestive heart failure in patients ineligible for transplant. Amylin also will acquire rights to various patents related to GLP-1, a naturally occurring hormone produced in the gut in response to food intake. Amylin paid Restoragen about $3.3 million at closing and will pay an additional $700,000 upon receiving satisfactory results from an ongoing Phase II trial. Restoragen also may receive contingent milestone and royalty payments on product sales.

• Aptus Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Gaithersburg, Md., received an undisclosed investment in its current financing round from Fujisawa Investments for Entrepreneurship LP, an investment arm of Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., of Osaka, Japan. Concurrently, Masakazu Kobayashi, a general partner in the Fujisawa investment group, will join the scientific advisory board of Aptus, which uses its AptuScreen technology in the discovery and development of drugs that modulate G protein-coupled receptors.

• Argonaut Technologies Inc., of Foster City, Calif., introduced the Advantage Series 4100 process scale-up reactor for pharmaceutical compound development. The 4100 reactor, the third product introduction in the Argonaut Advantage series of process chemistry instrument systems, is designed to use real-time reaction feedback and increase compound yields to improve the productivity of process chemists.

• Attenuon LLC, of San Diego, said the FDA OK'd its investigational new drug application, permitting the company to conduct clinical studies of ATN-161, a cancer treatment derived from a small fragment of a human protein. The first patient was enrolled and received an initial dose in the Phase I trial, which is expected to enroll up to 36 patients with advanced solid tumors that have not responded to traditional therapies.

• BioSante Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Lincolnshire, Ill., signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the U.S. Navy's Naval Medical Research Center for the development of a malaria vaccine. BioSante will provide the medical center with BioVant, its vaccine adjuvant and delivery system, and the center will provide DNA plasmids or proteins encoding antigens for Plasmodium. Financial details were not disclosed.

• BioTransplant Inc., of Medford, Mass., was notified by the Catholic University of Louvain, the licenser of BioTransplant's monoclonal antibody, MEDI-507, that the university intends to terminate the licensing agreement granted to BioTransplant on Saturday. BioTransplant and the university entered the agreement in 1993. BioTransplant received exclusive rights to develop and commercialize the BTI-322 rodent monoclonal antibody. BioTransplant has sublicensed BTI-322 and its humanized analogue, MEDI-507, to MedImmune Inc., of Gaithersburg, Md., which is conducting Phase II trials with it for the treatment of psoriasis. BioTransplant's stock (NASDAQ:BTRN) fell 10 cents Thursday, or 23.81 percent, to close at 32 cents.

• Cytomedix Inc., of Little Rock, Ark., said its common stock began trading on the Nasdaq OTC Bulletin Board. The symbol, CYME, remains in effect. Cytomedix focuses on processes and products derived from autologous platelet releasates.

• Endovasc Ltd. Inc., of Montgomery, Texas, said it plans to start a study Saturday at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston to research nicotine regulation of cardiac stem cell differentiation. The study, expected to end Jan. 31, 2004, is designed to determine whether nicotine can promote cardiac stem cell proliferation and differentiation in a dose-dependent manner and whether neuronal or non-neuronal nicotinic acetylcholine receptors mediate the effects of nicotine on the stem cells.

• Epimmune Inc., of San Diego, entered a five-year option and license agreement under which Beckman Coulter Inc., of Fullerton, Calif., may acquire nonexclusive worldwide licenses to specific epitopes covered by Epimmune patent rights or know-how in certain infectious diseases and cancer indications. Epimmune is entitled to up-front and annual option fees. If Beckman Coulter, which may use the epitopes for research and diagnostic applications in connection with its MHC Tetramer and other immune response monitoring technologies, exercises its option to acquire a license to any specific epitope, Epimmune would be entitled to additional license fees for each epitope and royalties on any product sales.

• Evotec OAI AG, of Hamburg, Germany, and Dynogen Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Boston, entered a three-year agreement under which Dynogen will use Evotec's chemistry and biology capabilities to identify neurological compounds to treat genitourinary and gastrointestinal disorders. Financial details were not disclosed. Evotec will provide assay development, development of focused libraries and biological screening, among others. Separately, Evotec said it entered an agreement with Psychiatric Genomics Inc., of Gaithersburg, Md., to work on small-molecule drugs to treat psychiatric diseases. Financial details were not disclosed.

• Exelixis Inc., of South San Francisco, said its Agrinomics LLC joint venture with Bayer CropScience AG, of Leverkusen, Germany, identified several new genes that confer resistance to fungal pathogens. The research has provided insights that will allow the development of technologies for improved plant productivity, the companies said. Agrinomics was formed in 1999 to conduct research, development and commercialization programs in agricultural functional genomics.

• Forest Laboratories Inc., of New York, said the FDA accepted the new drug application for memantine, an Alzheimer's disease agent. Forest said it should get a response from the FDA by the end of 2003. Memantine is a moderate-affinity, uncompetitive N-methyl D-aspartate receptor antagonist that modulates glutamate levels. Forest filed the NDA in late December. (See BioWorld Today, Dec. 23, 2002.)

• Iconix Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., and Schering-Plough Research Institute, the research arm of Schering-Plough Corp., of Kenilworth, N.J., agreed to develop and validate gene markers of drug-induced organ toxicity. Iconix and SPRI will engage in a joint research program to study the genomic basis for certain forms of organ toxicity in the liver, kidney and heart. The program is aimed at predictive toxicogenomic markers that may be useful in prioritizing and selecting candidate drug molecules earlier in the drug discovery cycle. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Immunitor Co., of Bangkok, Thailand, reported publication of Phase II trial results in the Jan. 30, 2003, issue of Vaccine. The placebo-controlled trial investigated V-1 Immunitor (V1) as a preventive AIDS vaccine in 35 healthy, non-infected individuals. Twenty HIV-negative volunteers immunized with V1 gained 28.2 percent and 17.5 percent in absolute CD4 (825 vs. 1,058; p=0.007) and CD8 (597 vs. 702; p=0.013) cells, while lymphocytes in the placebo group did not increase. At the same time, V1 did not induce HIV-specific antibodies.

• Interleukin Genetics Inc., of Waltham, Mass., completed an additional $500,000 interim financing in the form of a promissory note sold to an undisclosed consumer products company. Following the latest installment, Interleukin has received $2 million from the same company, funding that Interleukin called sufficient to meet its operating requirements through next month.

• Large Scale Biology Corp., of Vacaville, Calif., entered a research collaboration to apply its gene shuffling and molecular evolution technologies to genes of interest to Novozymes Biotech Inc., of Davis, Calif. Novozymes will provide genes encoding proteins of commercial interest, and Large Scale Biology will apply techniques in an attempt to modify the properties of the protein products. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• LifeCell Corp., of Branchburg, N.J., secured a $4 million credit facility through Silicon Valley Bank. The credit facility consists of a $2 million revolving line of credit and an equipment line for up to an additional $2 million. The facility will be used to replace $900,000 of existing term debt and will provide access to additional working capital to support growth. LifeCell develops and markets solutions for the repair and replacement of damaged or inadequate tissue.

• MDL Information Systems Inc., of San Leandro, Calif., and SciTegic Inc., of San Diego, entered a collaboration under which MDL will co-market SciTegic's data analysis and mining tool, Pipeline Pilot, in the life science informatics field, offer consulting services related to the product and license Pipeline Pilot for internal use. SciTegic will continue to develop, support and market the Pipeline Pilot product in all areas of life science research. Financial terms were not disclosed.

• Miravant Medical Technologies Inc., of Santa Barbara, Calif., said it plans to file its first new drug application for PhotoPoint SnET2, a drug to treat wet age-related macular degeneration. Miravant said its decision to file was supported by analyses of Phase III data showing positive results in a significant number of drug-treated patients vs. placebo patients, as well as discussions with the FDA. Miravant's stock (OTCBB:MRVT) gained 22 cents Thursday, or 22 percent, to close at $1.22.

• Neurochem Inc., of Montreal, said Steven Greenberg, associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the neurology clinical trials at Massachusetts General Hospital, was awarded a grant of about $1 million from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. The grant is in support of Neurochem's Phase II trials of Cerebril for the prevention of recurrent hemorrhagic stroke due to cerebral amyloid angiopathy.

• OSI Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Melville, N.Y., said a Phase III trial evaluating Tarceva (erlotinib HCl) as monotherapy to treat second- or third-line patients with incurable stage IIIB/IV non-small-cell lung cancer for whom standard chemotherapy has failed has reached its target enrollment of 700 patients. An alliance between OSI, Genentech Inc., of South San Francisco, and F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., of Basel, Switzerland, has now completed target enrollment for all four major Phase III trials for Tarceva, a small-molecule HER1/epidermal endothelial growth factor receptor inhibitor, involving about 3,500 patients. The first trial began about a year and a half ago. (See BioWorld Today, July 26, 2001.)

• Silicon Genetics Inc., of Redwood City, Calif., promoted Saeid Akhtari to president and CEO from his previous post of chief operating officer. Akhtari succeeds Andrew Conway, who will continue as executive chairman while evaluating new technologies for the company. Prior to joining Silicon Genetics in 2001, Akhtari held senior management positions at Pharsight Corp., DoubleTwist Inc., IntelliGenetics Inc. and Oxford Molecular Group.

• Sunesis Pharmaceuticals Inc., of South San Francisco, received a National Institutes of Health-funded Small Business Innovation Research grant for research to discover anticancer therapeutics. Sunesis will apply its fragment-based drug discovery technology, known as "Tethering," designed to generate small-molecule leads that stabilize the inactive conformation of kinases. Those enzymes are signaling molecules involved in cell growth and metabolism and play a significant role in a number of major diseases, including cancer, the company said.

• The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research in New York awarded $1.6 million to fund eight research projects for the development or validation of a diagnostic test, or biomarker, for Parkinson's disease. The foundation launched its biomarker initiative in April 2002. There is no definitive diagnostic test for Parkinson's disease, and clinical misdiagnosis is estimated to be as high as 25 percent, the foundation said.

• Viragen Inc., of Plantation, Fla., said two members of its board were named to the company's top management positions. Carl Singer will succeed Gerald Smith as chairman and Robert Salisbury will succeed Smith as president and CEO. Smith will continue to serve on the board.

• XOMA Ltd., of Berkeley, Calif., began a Phase II trial to evaluate Raptiva (efalizumab) in patients with active and progressive psoriatic arthritis. The multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study is designed to evaluate the drug's safety and efficacy. Its primary endpoint, a reduction in the signs and symptoms of the disease, will be measured after 12 weeks of treatment using the American College of Rheumatology 20 composite score. Raptiva is under FDA review for the treatment of moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, and is under evaluation in a Phase II trial to treat rheumatoid arthritis.