¿ Affymetrix Inc., of Santa Clara, Calif., reduced its expectations for second-quarter revenue due to lower-than-expected orders for its GeneChip product line and a further decline in the spotted array instrumentation marketplace. The company expects revenues to total between $44 million and $50 million, including $3 million to $4 million in revenue from subsidiary Perlegen Sciences Inc. The company said it expects to report a net loss for the second quarter of $4 million to $7 million.

¿ AlphaGene Inc., of Woburn, Mass., said it discovered two new human cell receptors involved in insulin metabolism and brain development and a novel receptor involved in pancreatic secretion. The pancreatic secretion receptor is being evaluated to determine its role in diabetes.

¿ Amgen Inc., of Thousand Oaks, Calif., said the European Commission approved Aranesp for the treatment of anemia in chronic kidney failure including patients on and not yet on dialysis. Aranesp is approved for administration once a week or once every two weeks. The second-generation EPO product is under review in the U.S. for the same indication.

¿ Biosite Diagnostics Inc., of San Diego, filed an action against XOMA Ltd., of Berkeley, Calif., and affiliates for a declaration that there has been no breach, and can be no termination, of three license agreements from XOMA. The agreements relate to the bacterial expression of antibodies. Also, Biosite is seeking an injunction against any purported termination by XOMA and a declaration that Biosite is not exceeding the scope of its licenses under certain patents claimed by XOMA.

¿ Biotech Holdings Ltd., of Vancouver, British Columbia, said the Canadian Venture Exchange has completed review and accepted documentation of Biotech Holdings¿ purchase of Immunis Corp.¿s 25 percent stake in Biotech Holdings¿ DIAB II, an insulin-receptor sensitizer. Biotech Holdings will issue Immunis Corp. 8.61 million shares in exchange for Immunis¿ interest in DIAB II. Based on Monday¿s opening price for Biotech Holdings¿ shares (OTC BB:BIOHF) of 23.75 cents, the transaction is valued at $2.05 million.

¿ BioTransplant Inc., of Charlestown, Mass., completed a private placement of more than 3 million shares of newly issued stock at $6.30 per share for gross proceeds of $19 million and a net to the company of $17.9 million. BioTransplant will use proceeds from the offering to advance its immune modulation therapy programs, including the AlloMune family of products, in addition to developing and commercializing its Eligix Cell Separation Systems. (See BioWorld Today, June 8, 2001.)

¿ BioVex Ltd., of London, entered two evaluation agreements with Aventis Pharma AG, of Frankfurt, Germany. In the first agreement, BioVex will use its product, GenTest, to provide Aventis with NeuroVEX vectors, which Aventis will evaluate for their ability to transduce cells and tissues of the nervous system to study the function of genes that may be targets for therapeutic intervention. In the second agreement, Aventis will evaluate ImmunoVEX vectors as a delivery vehicle for dendritic cells. Financial details were not disclosed.

¿ Cambridge Antibody Technology Group plc, of Melbourn, UK, said the SEC declared its registration statement effective, and that its shares were to begin trading in the form of American depository receipts on Monday on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol CATG. Each ADR will represent one share of CAT, and the depository bank for the ADR program is the Bank of New York.

¿ Celera Genomics Inc., of Rockville, Md., signed multiyear agreements with the Jackson Laboratory and John Hopkins University to allow investigators from the institutions to access Celera¿s database products through the Celera Discovery System. Financial terms were not disclosed.

¿ ChemBridge, Corp., of San Diego, and Sumitomo Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd., of Tokyo, entered an agreement to provide Sumitomo nonexclusive access to ChemBridge¿s Pharmacophore combinatorial lead discovery library. Financial terms were not disclosed.

¿ COR Therapeutics Inc, of South San Francisco, and Schering-Plough Corp., of Madison, N.J., said the FDA approved revised prescribing information for Integrilin. The revision includes a new dosing regimen for patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention and specific references within the indications for patients undergoing intracoronary stenting. The revised dosing calls for a regimen supported by results from COR¿s ESPRIT (Enhanced Suppression of Platelet Receptor GP IIb-IIIa using Integrilin Therapy) trial.

¿ Cyternex Inc., of San Diego, is receiving funding from RCT BioVentures West, of Menlo Park, Calif., and IngleWood Ventures, of San Diego. Cyternex investigates the role of dynamic 3-dimensional DNA structures in regulating cancer genes and other aspects of tumor biology. Financial terms of the funding were not disclosed.

¿ Dendreon Corp., of Seattle, expanded its clinical program for Provenge, its therapeutic cancer vaccine, with the initiation of a Phase III trial in men with early stage prostate cancer. Provenge is in Phase III trials in men with advanced hormone-refractory prostate cancer, and said the initial Phase III trial will be closed on schedule ¿shortly.¿

¿ Dragon Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Vancouver, British Columbia, acquired rights to technology related to the production of hepatitis B vaccine from Alphatech Bioengineering Ltd., of Hong Kong. The purchase price for the technology, which involves the application of genetic techniques for the expression and purification of recombinant hepatitis B vaccine protein using Chinese hamster ovary cells, was $4 million.

¿ Endovasc Ltd. Inc., of Montgomery, Texas, said it intends to be in preclinical trials as early as autumn with a new topical application of Liprostin, being developed in collaboration with Dow Pharmaceuticals Services, of Petaluma, Calif. The liposomal product is an extension of its intravenous product, which targets critical limb ischemia and coronary artery disease, the companies said.

¿ Genetix Group plc, of New Milton, England, introduced the protein spot excision system, gelPix. The system, developed in conjunction with the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, features a range of highly precise robots, the company said, to assist researchers in the discovery of protein functions.

¿ Gilead Sciences Inc., of Foster City, Calif., initiated Phase I trials of adefovir dipivoxil for the treatment of chronic hepatitis B infection in China. The program will be initiated with three separate Phase I trials that will be conducted in sequential order. Gilead has Phase III clinical trials for adefovir dipivoxil in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

¿ La Jolla Pharmaceutical Co., of San Diego, enrolled the first patient in Europe in its Phase III trial of its lupus kidney disease drug, LJP 394. About 100 patients have now enrolled in the trial, which has sites in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, in addition to Europe. The company plans to enroll about 300 lupus patients.

¿ Lorus Therapeutics Inc., of Toronto, said it began testing patients with its anticancer antisense drug GTI-2501. The Phase I dose-escalating trial will enroll patients with solid tumors or lymphoma for which no effective treatment is available or for which standard therapies produced no response, and will seek to establish the clinical Phase II dose.

¿ MPM Capital LP, of Cambridge, Mass., said the MPM-managed BioVentures II Group of funds acquired a major ownership stake in Biovitrum AB, of Stockholm, Sweden. The group committed to a total investment of up to $130 million, most of which will fund Biovitrum¿s operations. A smaller part of the funding will be used to buy shares directly from Pharmacia Corp., of Peapack, N.J., which will remain a large shareholder in Biovitrum. The Swedish company engages in metabolic research and development, recombinant protein development and manufacturing and blood plasma products.

¿ NeoTherapeutics Inc., of Irvine, Calif., said its lead drug, Neotrofin, was featured in the June 2001 issue of Experimental Neurology. The article focuses on an Italian study on rats that showed Neotrofin to be neuroprotective against neuronal injury induced by kainic acid. Neotrofin is currently under clinical investigation for Alzheimer¿s disease, Parkinson¿s disease and spinal cord injury.

¿ NetGenics Inc., of Cleveland, entered a partnership with Schering AG, of Berlin, aimed at building a comprehensive corporate gene database. The database will be used to integrate gene data from throughout the Schering group with the goal of providing a single, central point of access to curated and annotated gene, sequence and expression data. Terms were undisclosed.

¿ Oncolytics Biotech Inc., of Calgary, Alberta, signed The Investor Relations Group Inc., of New York, to serve as its financial relations and corporate communications company for U.S. investors. The Investor Relations Group will strive to increase awareness of Oncolytics in the U.S. market, Oncolytics said.

¿ The National Center for Genome Resources, of Santa Fe, N.M., was awarded three research grants totaling $839,000, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, four centers of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research and New Mexico State University, for three separate projects. The award, spread over two years, will allow the center to develop its Gene Expression, Integrated System and Pathways programs.

¿ Therion Biologics Corp., of Cambridge, Mass., elected Ronald Saldarini as chairman of its board. Saldarini has more than 30 years of pharmaceutical experience and has been on Therion¿s board since 1999.

¿ Tularik Inc., of South San Francisco, and ChemoCentryx Inc., of San Carlo, Calif., are optimizing drug-like lead compounds with the potential to treat inflammatory conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, organ transplant rejection, psoriasis and asthma. The drug candidates act by blocking receptor sites on the surface of white blood cells to which specific chemokines are known to bind, and the candidates are designed to reduce inappropriate immune responses.

¿ Zeltia-PharmaMar, of Madrid, Spain, said Ecteinascidin-743 was granted orphan medicinal product designation for the treatment of soft-tissue sarcoma by the European Commission. ET-743 is obtained from the tunicate Ecteinascidia turbinata ¿ the sea squirt found in the Caribbean and Mediterranean seas.