¿ Charles River Laboratories International Inc., of Wilmington, Mass., priced its public offering of 8 million shares of common stock at $29 per share. Two million shares were sold by the company and 6 million by selling stockholders. Joint lead managers for the offering are Credit Suisse First Boston, of New York, and Lehman Brothers Inc., of New York. The offering raised $58 million for Charles River. Underwriters have an overallotment option on 1.2 million additional shares. Separately, it said it completed its acquisition of Genetic Models Inc., of Indianapolis. Charles River paid $4 million in cash to acquire all of GMI¿s stock. GMI offers proprietary and disease-specific rat models for biomedical research.

¿ DNA Sciences Inc., of Fremont, Calif., withdrew its initial public offering, citing changes in its business and financing plans, recent market volatility and other considerations as reasons for the withdrawal. The company filed for its IPO in January, seeking $125 million. The company focuses on developing diagnostics and therapeutics for diseases including cancer, asthma, inflammatory disease, osteoporosis and diabetes. (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 9, 2001.)

¿ Milkhaus Laboratory Inc., of Providence, R.I., elected Gerald Martin chairman of its board. Martin was most recently vice president, corporate licensing and technology alliances at Abbott Laboratories, of Abbott Park, Ill.

¿ Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Inc., of Jerusalem, said the FDA approved enhanced labeling for Teva¿s multiple sclerosis drug, Copaxone (glatiramer acetate for injection). The approval is based on a multicenter, double-blind, placebo-controlled study that showed a significant reduction of magnetic resonance imaging Gd-enhanced lesions in patients treated with Copaxone. The company said the enhanced label including the MRI research gives physicians an additional tool to consider when selecting a multiple sclerosis therapy.

¿ Texas Biotechnology Corp., of Houston, said the FDA issued an approvable letter for a supplemental new drug application for Argatroban, expanding the treatable patient population to include patients who have or who are at risk of developing thrombosis associated with heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) and are undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention. Argatroban is marketed by GlaxoSmithKline plc, of London, and is approved for the prophylaxis or treatment of thrombosis in patients with HIT. The drug was approved for that indication in July 2000. (See BioWorld Today, July 3, 2000.)

¿ Weston Medical Group plc, of Cambridgeshire, UK, agreed with Celltech Group plc, of Slough, UK, for Weston to regain the European rights to deliver influenza vaccines through its drug delivery technology, Intraject. Weston signed a European licensing agreement with Medeva plc, of London, concerning the delivery of products to prevent and treat influenza in August 1996. Celltech bought Medeva in January 2000, and although it sold its vaccines business, retained the rights to commercialize influenza vaccines using Intraject in Europe. Financial terms were not disclosed. Separately, Weston entered an exclusive, worldwide option and licensing agreement with Abbott Laboratories, of Abbott Park, Ill., to evaluate Intraject with Abbott compounds. Abbott has an option for exclusive rights to use the Intraject technology for up to 11 therapeutic targets in the next 10 years. Weston would receive up-front fees, milestone payments and royalties on the combined sales of the drug plus the Intraject device. Financial terms were not disclosed.

¿ Repligen Corp., of Needham, Mass., presented data from its Phase II trial of secretin in autism at the annual meeting of the Autism Society of America in San Diego. Data showed patients treated with secretin had an improvement in symptoms over the eight-week period of the trial using multiple assessments. It also presented a meta-analysis of four previously published Phase I studies involving smaller patient populations and fewer doses of secretin. The results from the Phase II trial demonstrated a significant treatment effect of secretin in the entire patient population using the parental Clinical Global Impression scale (p=0.02), the company said.