¿ Amersham Pharmacia Biotech, of Piscataway, N.J., said it acquired 100 percent of the Danish company Dan-Process A/S, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pantax. Dan-Process is a supplier of engineering solutions for the purification of biomolecules, specializing in high-pressure process-scale chromatography systems and columns. Financial terms were not disclosed.

¿ BresaGen Ltd., of Thebarton, Australia, derived four human embryonic stem cell lines at its U.S. operation in Georgia, headed by Allan Robbins. The work was done as part of BresaGen¿s research into treatments for neurodegenerative conditions, including Parkinson¿s disease, stroke and spinal cord injury.

¿ Caliper Technologies Corp., of Mountain View, Calif., said the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Caliper established an applications developer program collaboration through a subcontract with Sverdrup Technology Inc., of Tullahoma, Tenn., to create macromolecular crystals aboard the International Space Station using LabChip technology. The collaboration is designed to develop custom chips and LabChip systems to facilitate the growth of macromolecular crystals in a microgravity environment. Information from the collaboration can be used to help determine the 3-dimensional structure of a macromolecule that may reveal details about the molecule¿s function and behavior in the body, Caliper said. Financial terms were not disclosed.

¿ Commonwealth Biotechnologies Inc., of Richmond, Va., and bayMountain Inc., also of Richmond, signed a letter of intent to develop and commercialize methods to help interpret and mine the data present in genome databases. Privately held bayMountain is a provider of web and application infrastructure services. Financial terms were not released.

¿ Compugen Ltd., of Tel Aviv, Israel, signed agreements with the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and the Weizmann Institute of Science to provide them with Gencarta, Compugen¿s annotated genome, transcriptome and proteome database. Financial terms were not disclosed.

¿ Elan Corp. plc, of Dublin, Ireland, said its wholly owned subsidiary, Quadrant Healthcare plc, defended the infringement action brought against it by Inhale Therapeutic Systems Inc., of San Carlos, Calif., in the Patents Court of the UK High Court. Inhale had claimed Quadrant¿s trehalose glass-stabilization technology infringed Inhale¿s European patent, EP (UK) 383 569. The judgement issued declared Inhale¿s patent was invalid, among other judgements, and Inhale was ordered to pay Quadrant¿s costs of defending the action, Elan said.

¿ Esoterix Inc., of Austin, Texas, said its genetics laboratory, Esoterix Molecular Genetics, is under construction in Minneapolis and will be open for business in August. The laboratory will have the capability to integrate clinical laboratory data for information and have a mission to educate clients in what genetics can do for patient care, the company said.

¿ GeneMachines Inc., of San Carlos, Calif., received a license to U.S. Patent Numbers 5,807,522 and 6,110,426 and their foreign equivalents from Incyte Genomics Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif. The patents cover fundamental methods for fabricating microarrays of biological samples on solid substrates. The agreement will enable GeneMachines to sell its OmniGrid and OmniGrid Accent microarrays with a label license for research use that allows end users to practice the methods for printing microarrays.

¿ Geron Corp., of Menlo Park, Calif., said its board approved the adoption of a share purchase plan under which all stockholders of record as of July 31 will receive rights to purchase shares of a new series of preferred stock. The rights are intended to enable stockholders to realize the long-term value of their investment. The rights do not prevent a takeover, the company said, but should encourage anyone seeking to acquire Geron to negotiate with the board. The rights are not being distributed in response to any specific effort to acquire control of Geron, it said.

¿ Hemosol Inc., of Toronto, responded to questions posed by Health Canada¿s Biologics and Genetic Therapies Directorate after the directorate¿s first review of Hemosol¿s new drug submission for Hemolink. Health Canada will now have 45 days to screen the response for completeness and that should be followed by a 90-day technical review period. Based on these timelines, Hemosol said it expects to receive a response from Health Canada by the end of 2001.

¿ HIV-VAC Inc., of Collingwood, Ontario, said its board approved a 1-for-100 reverse split of its outstanding common stock. It will begin trading under a new CUSIP number and the new trading symbol of HIVV today. The reverse stock split is part of its reorganization plan being implemented to finance development of its proposed AIDS vaccine. The company is in the process of applying for regulatory approval to initiate a Phase I/II trial in Russia.

¿ Hybrigenics SA, of Paris, entered a collaboration with Oxford GlycoSciences plc, of Oxford, UK, to improve the selection and prioritization of Oxford¿s candidate targets, with the potential to discover new targets. Hybrigenics will use its high-throughput functional proteomics technology to identify proteins that interact with a selection of Oxford targets. The data generated will be owned equally by both companies. Oxford GlycoSciences will provide Hybrigenics with research funding and will have an option to obtain the exclusive rights to commercialize the resulting data. Financial details were not disclosed.

¿ IDEC Pharmaceuticals Corp., of San Diego, said Zevalin, its agent for the treatment of relapsed or refractory low-grade, follicular CD20-positive transformed, B-cell non-Hodgkin¿s lymphoma and Rituximab-refractory follicular non-Hodgkin¿s lymphoma, is to be reviewed by the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee of the FDA on Sept. 11. The biologics license application for Zevalin was submitted to the FDA on Nov. 1 and it was accepted for filing in December.

¿ ILEX Oncology Inc., of Boston, said study results published in the ¿Papers in Press¿ section of the Journal of Biological Chemistry identify for the first time linear peptide sequences derived from tumstatin, an extracellular matrix-derived natural protein involved in controlling angiogenesis. The study was conducted by Raghu Kalluri and his laboratory at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical Center in collaboration with scientists at ILEX¿s Boston laboratory headed by Surender Kharbanda.

¿ Inex Pharmaceuticals Corp., of Vancouver, British Columbia, said the final patient was enrolled in a Phase I trial of its anticancer product, INX-3280, an oligonucleotide, in combination with the approved cancer drug, cisplatin, at the British Columbia Cancer Agency in Vancouver and the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal. The trial involved 14 patients with solid tumors or lymphoma.

¿ NeoTherapeutics Inc., of Irvine, Calif., said its NeoOncoRx oncology subsidiary finalized the acquisition of the anticancer compound Neoquin, and 79 analogues from NDDO Research Foundation, of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. A Phase II study of the drug in bladder cancer will be initiated in the United Kingdom by the end of the year, the company said.

¿ SafeScience Inc., of Boston, completed patient enrollment in a Phase II trial of its lead drug candidate, GBC-590, in patients with refractory pancreatic adenocarcinoma. GBC-590 has potential application for the treatment of a number of cancer indications and is being evaluated in Phase II trials for pancreatic and colorectal cancer.

¿ SciClone Pharmaceuticals Inc., of San Mateo, Calif., said its immune system enhancer product, Zadaxin, was approved in the Philippines as an adjuvant to chemotherapy for the treatment of various cancers. Zadaxin also is approved in the Philippines for the treatment of both hepatitis C and hepatitis B, and approved in 24 countries overall.

¿ Spotfire Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., said DecisionSite for Functional Genomics and DecisionSite for Lead Discovery are available. It also announced the launch of DecisionSite 6.2, the industry¿s first XML-configurable analytic application to be delivered to the market, it said. The programs are designed to aid analytical chemists, biologists and scientists in the field of genomics, biology and biomedical data.

¿ SuperGen Inc., of Dublin, Calif., said a study of rubitecan showed its ability to inhibit by more than 95 percent the replication of HIV-1 in clinically relevant primary peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBL). The study also showed that rubitecan induced apoptosis within 24 hours of drug treatment in freshly infected, but not noninfected, PBLs. Similar results were observed in single-, double- or triple-dose regimens and minimal toxicity was observed from both noninfected and infected PBLs. Rubitecan is in late-stage trials for treating advanced pancreatic cancer.

¿ Vion Pharmaceuticals Inc., of New Haven, Conn., initiated a Phase II trial of its anticancer agent, Triapine. The study will evaluate the activity of Triapine in patients with acute and chronic leukemias. Triapine is an inhibitor of the enzyme ribonucleotide reductase. The trial will be conducted at the Greenebaum Cancer Center of the University of Maryland Medical Center under the direction of Judith Karp.

¿ Vical Inc., of San Diego, said Merial, a joint venture between Merck and Co. Inc., of Whitehouse Station, N.J., and Aventis SA, of Frankfurt, Germany, extended options under a 1995 agreement to develop and commercialize vaccines for animal health applications using Vical¿s patented naked DNA technology. Vical will receive $1 million and Merial will receive a renewable one-year extension of its options against additional infectious disease targets in domesticated animals. If Merial renews its option extension or exercises additional options, Vical would receive further payments. Vical also would receive royalties for any vaccines sold that are covered by the agreement.