• Avant Immunotherapeutics Inc., of Needham, Mass., said it agreed in principle to acquire the technology and intellectual property of Universal Preservation Technologies Inc., of San Diego. It also will license certain patent rights from Elan Drug Delivery Ltd., a subsidiary of Elan Corp. plc, of Dublin, Ireland. Avant gains exclusive rights to UPT's VitriLife process for use in Avant's oral vaccines and certain non-injectable applications. The VitriLife process is a drying method for the industrial-scale preservation of biological solutions and suspensions for shipping or storing at or above room temperature. The transaction does not include UPT's facility or employees and financial terms were not disclosed. As part of the acquisition, Elan Drug Delivery agreed to settle a patent interference with UPT, allowing UPT to assign certain patent rights to Elan and for Elan to license UPT's patents and other related patents to Avant. Elan Drug Delivery will receive a one-time license fee for the patent rights.

• Cell Therapeutics Inc., of Seattle, said it plans to start two Phase III trials of Xyotax in front-line treatment of poor performance status (PS2) patients with non-small-cell lung cancer. The FDA indicated the PS2 population and overall study designs were acceptable for the Phase III trials. The trials, called STELLAR 3 and STELLAR 4, will be designed to evaluate whether Xyotax increases the survival rate in PS2 patients when compared to study controls. The trials are two of three Phase III studies the company has scheduled in non-small-lung cancer; it started in early October a Phase III trial designed to evaluate whether Xyotax is superior to docetaxel in patient survival times. The company plans to initiate the trials in the next several weeks, it said. (See BioWorld Today, Oct. 8, 2002.)

• CytoGenix Inc., of Houston, said a preclinical study of its single-stranded DNA expression technology for generating catalytic anticancer oligodeoxynucleotides (ODN) was accepted for publication in the January 2003 issue of Biotechniques. The study showed that catalytic ODNs generated in cells by the technology blocked the expression of a cancer-related gene, it said.

• Deltagen Inc., of Redwood City, Calif., reported publication in the Oct. 11, 2002, issue of Science of findings regarding its drug metabolism and drug toxicity screening system, XenoPharm. Data showed that modulation of CAR (constitutively androstane receptor) regulates the metabolism and toxic action of acetaminophen and potentially other liver-toxic pharmaceutical agents. Deltagen is the exclusive licensee of the CAR transgenic technologies from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

• Endovasc Ltd. Inc., of Montgomery, Texas, signed a letter of intent with XM International d/b/a Basic Research Inc., a subsidiary of Royal Numico NV, of Zoetermeer, the Netherlands. Basic Research will invest $2.5 million in developing, commercializing and marketing an array of nutraceutical products built on Endovasc's technology. Also, Basic Research agreed to pay Endovasc a 10 percent royalty on all revenues generated by such products.

• Enzo Biochem Inc., of Farmingdale, N.Y., and its wholly owned subsidiary, Enzo Life Sciences Inc., filed suit against Amersham plc, of London, and PerkinElmer Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., charging them and six other companies with breach of contract, patent infringement and other counts rising out of an alleged misuse of Enzo's nucleotide products and technologies. Other defendants include Molecular Probes Inc., of Eugene, Ore.; Orchid Biosciences Inc., of Princeton, N.J.; Sigma-Aldrich Corp., of St. Louis; and its subsidiary, Sigma Chemical Co. Inc.

• Genome Express SA, of Grenoble, France, released its latest technology, DACS (discriminative analysis of clone signatures). Its first application, gene expression DACS, is designed to eliminate bottlenecks in the discovery process of genes expressed in tissue or cells.

• Infigen Inc., of Deforest, Wis., said it will collaborate with a team of scientists to create a pig model of neurodegenerative disease. The research will be funded by a grant of an undisclosed amount from the A-T Children's Project in Deerfield Beach, Fla. Infigen focuses on nuclear transfer cloning in human health and animal agriculture fields.

• GenoMed Inc., of St. Louis, said an article published in the September/October 2002 issue of Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics identifies common diseases that might benefit from treatment with an ACE inhibitor. The paper concluded that effective ACE inhibition might improve patient outcomes in a number of diseases. GenoMed has applied for patents on several disease indications for its new ACE-inhibitor-based treatment, it said.

• Kensey Nash Corp., of Exton, Pa., received from the National Cancer Institute, a unit of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., a one-year, $100,000 Small Business Innovation Research grant to begin discovery research on a bioresorbable polymer drug delivery device. In collaboration with Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Kensey Nash is expected to begin studies of a delivery system composed of multiple biomaterials and drug compounds.

• MorphoSys AG, of Munich, Germany, said it terminated merger talks with British Biotech plc, of London. It also said it does not expect an equity-based partnership to be completed by the end of the calendar year and estimates its year-end cash position to be €15 million. MorphoSys develops technologies for the production of synthetic antibodies.

• Panacea Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Rockville, Md., received from the National Cancer Institute, a unit of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., a Phase I Small Business Innovation Research grant. The funds are aimed at the development of a diagnostic test for pancreatic cancer based on Panacea's HAAH oncology program, which targets the enzyme human aspartyl asparaginyl beta-hydroxylase as both a therapeutic target and as a cancer marker.

• Pharmacopeia Inc., of Princeton, N.J., and Kowa Co. Ltd., of Tokyo, entered a collaboration focused on inflammation. Pharmacopeia will provide its small-molecule discovery knowledge to identify leads against a Kowa target. Pharmacopeia will receive funding and could receive payments for milestones and royalties on approved drugs. Further details were not provided.

• PrimaBioMed Ltd., of Victoria, Australia, said a Phase I trial showed a dendritic cell-based therapy developed by PrimaBioMed's subsidiary, Cancer Vac Ltd., caused no side effects. Every patient produced specific immune cells to cancer cells, the company said. PrimaBioMed has started the process of initiating a Phase II trial, and expects to begin it later this year.

• Sanguine Corp., of Pasadena, Calif., said it is preparing to enter an agreement with the City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte, Calif., to supply samples to develop a transplant organ solution made from its oxygen transfer pharmaceutical, PHER-O2. The hospital is conducting a study underwritten by a grant from the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., to develop an improved transplant organ perfusion solution that would preserve transplant organs during shipping and while awaiting transplantation.

• SignalGene Inc., of Montreal, said it closed the transaction to spin off its functional genomics unit into a new company called Alethia BioTherapeutics Inc. In consideration for transferring all tangible assets of the unit and its technology, SignalGene received common shares of Alethia valued at $3.65 million. Also, Genome Quebec will contribute $6.1 million over three years to fund Alethia's operation. The spin-off was initially made public in September. (See BioWorld Today, Sept. 6, 2002.)

• Viragen Inc., of Plantation, Fla., and Viragen International Inc. said they entered an exclusive distribution agreement with CJ Pharma, the U.S. pharmaceutical division of Seoul, S. Korea-based Cheil Jedang, to distribute Viragen's human alpha interferon, Multiferon, in designated Latin American countries. Financial terms of the five-year agreement were not disclosed.

• Zengen Inc., of Woodland Hills, Calif., filed an investigational new drug application for CZEN 002, one of its peptide molecules. The product is designed to treat vulvovaginal candidiasis, also known as vaginal yeast infection. Zengen's peptides are based on the larger melanocortin peptide, alpha-melanocyte-stimulating hormone.

• Zycos Inc., of Lexington, Mass., said its lead therapeutic, ZYC101a, demonstrated positive results in a multicenter Phase IIb study of patients with high-grade cervical dysplasia, a condition caused by human papilloma virus (HPV). The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, 161-patient study found that high-grade cervical dysplasia was resolved in 70 percent of a prospectively identified cohort of young patients treated with ZYC101a, compared to 23 percent of patients treated with placebo (p<0.01).