¿ LION bioscience AG, of Heidelberg, Germany, released new software tools for analysis of molecular networks and metabolic pathways. piSCOUT software enables researchers to build up maps of protein networks on data derived in silico from public domain databases as well as on data derived from its own findings in the lab. The other software module, pathSCOUT, enables researchers to analyze metabolic pathways in silico.

¿ Astex Technology Ltd., of Cambridge, UK, a drug discovery company specializing in high-throughput X-ray crystallography, has joined a consortium run by the bioinformatics company Global Phasing Ltd., which has developed software programs for converting X-ray crystallography data into 3-D structures of macromolecules. Financial terms were not disclosed. Global Phasing, also based in Cambridge, has a number of pharmaceutical and biotech companies in its consortium.

¿ Cambridge Antibody Group plc, of Melbourn, UK, said CAT-213 for the treatment of allergy has begun Phase I trials, bringing the number of fully human antibody products it has in the clinic to five. The trial will involve 25 healthy volunteers, and assess the effect of a single intravenous dose of the product. CAT-213 neutralizes the inflammatory agent eotaxin1, and could be used to treat allergic conditions including rhinitis and asthma. A trial in allergic patients is planned for later this year. CAT also announced that its shares have begun trading on Nasdaq.

¿ Cerep, of Paris, signed a three-year drug discovery agreement with the Franco-German pharmaceutical company Aventis Pharma AG, of Frankfurt. The agreement provides for Cerep to make its drug discovery technology platform available to Aventis for preclinical studies of new compounds. Cerep will use its expertise in the fields of pharmacological screening and pharmaceutical profiling as well as traditional pharmacology to generate and optimize new drug candidates for Aventis to take into clinical development. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

¿ Direvo Biotech AG, of Cologne, Germany, said it has been granted a DM9.8 million (US$4.3 million) subsidy by the government of the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The company, which focuses on searching and optimizing biomolecules for pharmaceutical, chemical and industrial applications, wants to use the money to make its directed evolution platform run at an ultra-high-throughput pace.

¿ Gentech, of Sophia-Antipolis, France, launched an integrated software program called Biotechnix 3d, which contains all the tools needed for analyzing DNA sequences and proteins. The system is designed for use by molecular biologists and was originally developed for internal use. But following the company¿s decision to make a trial version available on the Internet in April, over 500 researchers around the world have downloaded it.

¿ IsoTis NV, of Bilthoven, the Netherlands, was granted two U.S. patents for its tissue engineered bone technology. The first patent relates to a method for in vitro production of bone, the second to a biomaterial that contains osteoprogenitor cells and acts as a scaffold for bone regeneration.

¿ Novuspharma SpA, of Milan, Italy, said it has begun recruitment for a Phase II trial of BBR 3438 in patients with advanced gastric cancer, and a parallel Phase II study of BBR 3576, also in gastric cancer, to compare the two compounds. In preclinical studies both showed anticancer activity in a wide variety of solid tumors, with BBR3438 highly active as a single agent, while BBR3576 worked well in combination with existing cytotoxics. The two are aza-anthrapyrazolic intercalating agents that act by binding irreversibly to the DNA of cancer cells, preventing them from replicating. The novel class is structurally similar to anthracyclines, which are widely used in cancer therapy, but are cardiotoxic over a certain dose level. In preclinical studies BBR3438 and BBR3576 were significantly less toxic. BBR 3438 is licensed from the University of Vermont in the U.S. Novuspharma was spun out of Boehringer Mannheim and F. Hoffmann-La Roche in 1998, and floated on the Milan stock exchange in November 2000.