¿ Albany Molecular Research Inc., of Albany, N.Y., and Rigel Pharmaceuticals Inc., of South San Francisco, entered an agreement for medicinal chemistry services to support and accelerate Rigel¿s product development. Albany will provide Rigel with expertise to accelerate the optimization of compounds in Rigel¿s mast cell program. Financial details were not disclosed.

¿ Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc., of San Diego, said its subsidiary, Amylin Europe Ltd., submitted marketing authorization applications for Symlin (pramlintide acetate) to the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products. Symlin is an analogue of human amylin, a hormone secreted with insulin by the beta cells in the pancreas.

¿ Anika Therapeutics Inc., of Woburn, Mass., said it reached an agreement to settle a class action lawsuit against it and certain company directors and officers, which relates to the company¿s restatement of financial results for 1998 and the first three quarters of 1999. As part of the proposed settlement, Anika will pay a total of $1.25 million into a settlement fund that will, among other things, be used to pay people who purchased or otherwise acquired Anika common stock between April 15, 1998, and May 30, 2000. The settlement is contingent upon final court approval.

¿ Bioheart Inc., of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said the first ever nonsurgical endovascular case attempting to augment heart function by injecting cultured autologous myoblasts (primarily immature cells collected from a biopsy of a patient¿s thigh muscle) was completed on the damaged area of a 78-year-old female¿s heart using the company¿s MyoCell product. MyoCell is designed to regenerate damaged heart muscle tissue through the transplantation of immature muscle cells. The study is part of a safety evaluation of the product designed to lead to a controlled Phase I/II clinical trial in Europe.

¿ CancerVax Corp., of Carlsbad, Calif., completed construction of a new biologics manufacturing facility in the Los Angeles area. The 26,000-square-foot facility contains more than 10,000 square feet of cleanroom production suites dedicated to vaccine manufacturing.

¿ Chromavision Medical Systems Inc., of San Juan Capistrano, Calif., said ImClone Systems Inc., of New York, will use the Automated Cellular Imaging System in the research and development of ImClone¿s new and existing oncology therapeutics. ACIS detects, counts and classifies cells of clinical interest based on color, size and shape.

¿ Envirogen Inc., of Lawrenceville, N.J., said it received a $1.6 million order for a membrane biological reactor to treat wastewater from the Aerojet Fine Chemicals production facility in Rancho Cordova, Calif.

¿ Genzyme General, of Cambridge, Mass., reported data from preclinical studies demonstrating that its lead small-molecule substrate-inhibition compound, Genz-78132 (D-threo-et-P4), compared with first-generation compounds under investigation. Genzyme presented the data at the International Conference on Prospects in the Treatment of Rare Diseases in Trieste, Italy. Genz-78132 is under development for the treatment of several lysosomal storage diseases, and works by inhibiting the synthesis of glycolipids.

¿ Graffinity Pharmaceutical Design, of Heidelberg, Germany, entered a discovery alliance with Aventis Pharma AG, of Frankfurt, Germany. Graffinity will use its chemical microarray-based discovery platform for the identification of lead structures for Aventis targets. Financial terms were undisclosed.

¿ Gyros AB, of Stockholm, Sweden, and Affibody AB, of Stockholm, entered a strategic alliance calling for both to allocate resources to develop and commercialize an integrated and automated microfluidics-based protein microarray platform. Gyros said the platform will combine its CD-based microlaboratories with Affibody¿s high-throughput, high-sensitivity protein microarrays.

¿ Rho Ventures, of New York, said it reached the final closing of Rho Ventures IV LP with commitments of $435 million. The fund will finance seed- through development-stage companies in information technology, telecommunications and health care.

¿ Icon Genetics AG, of Munich, Germany, received a DM6.5 million (US$2.85 million) matching grant from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Berlin to develop prototypes of its proprietary line conversion technology for wheat and rape seed, two of Europe¿s most important crops. The research and development will be done in collaboration with the Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Gatersleben, Germany. The grant will be leveraged through Icon¿s own funds and will enable the company to develop the first working prototypes of transgene operating systems for wheat and rape seed.

¿ ImClone Systems Inc., of New York, disclosed the early achievement of a clinical development milestone under its agreement with Merck KgaA, of Darmstadt, Germany. The $5 million equity-based milestone payment is related to the presentation of data from ImClone¿s Phase II study of IMC-C225 in combination with irinotecan in patients with irinotecan-refractory colorectal cancer. (See BioWorld Today, May 15, 2001.)

¿ MetaPhore Pharmaceuticals Inc., of St. Louis, said it received FDA approval for its investigational new drug application for M40403, an enzyme mimetic compound. MetaPhore initiated a Phase I safety and tolerability study to determine the pharmacokinetics of the compound in normal healthy subjects as a precursor to initiating a Phase II trial of M40403 as a co-therapy with interleukin-2 for advanced skin and end-stage kidney cancers.

¿ Miravant Medical Technologies Inc., of Santa Barbara, Calif., entered an agreement with Pharmacia Corp., of Peapack, N.J., for up to $20 million in funding that includes the sale of Miravant¿s PhotoPoint drug SnET2. The compound is in Phase III trials for treatment of wet age-related macular degeneration. Those trials are expected to be completed in December. The funding package, which includes the purchase of SnET2 clinical inventory and manufacturing equipment, assumption of lease obligations for the SnET2 manufacturing facility and a $13.2 million line of credit ¿ of which $10 million is conditioned upon the filing of a new drug application for SnET2 by Pharmacia ¿ amends a February 1999 loan agreement.

¿ Orchid BioSciences Inc., of Princeton, N.J., said DNA Link Inc., of Seoul, Korea, agreed to purchase a SNPstream 25K system for industrial-scale single nucleotide polymorphism scoring. DNA Link will conduct high-throughput genotyping using the platform and SNPware kits, and will purchase access to Orchid¿s SNP databases.

¿ Palatin Technologies Inc., of Princeton, N.J., said it completed a double-blind, placebo-controlled, dose-escalation Phase I safety study of PT-141, Palatin¿s erectile dysfunction therapeutic candidate, in 56 volunteers. A maximum tolerated dose was not established. The data further indicated that the nasal formulation should be capable of delivering therapeutic levels of PT-141 in a rapid and consistent manner.

¿ Roslin Institute, of Edinburgh, Scotland, reported in Nature Biotechnology the birth of a lamb in which a copy of the PrP (prion protein) gene has been deleted. The institute said the lamb represents the first time a gene has been deleted from a mammal other than a mouse. The lamb was exterminated after 12 days when researchers found it to have an untreatable cardiopulmonary defect.

¿ Sanguine Corp., of Pasadena, Calif., said it will conduct safety and efficacy studies of perfluorocarbons (PFCs) in treatment of decompression sickness. Sanguine said PFCs¿ small droplet size and high oxygen content may be an excellent vehicle to provide the oxygen necessary to prevent the formation of bubbles in the bloodstream.

¿ Synthon Chiragenics Corp., of Monmouth Junction, N.J., launched a carbohydrate-based drug discovery program. The program will consist of partnerships to advance Synthon candidates into preclinical screening and an access-offering program centered on Synthon¿s advanced molecular compounds and intellectual property.

¿ Triad Therapeutics Inc., of San Diego, said data published in the May 16, 2001, issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society detailed a new technique enabling the use of NMR for structural characterization of protein-ligand interactions for proteins as large or larger than 70 kDa called SEA-TROSY (Solvent Exposed Amides with TROSY). Triad is using SEA-TROSY to accelerate structure-based design of gene family-focused small-molecule drug libraries.

¿ Tularik Inc., of South San Francisco, formed a subsidiary, Tularik Texas Corp. The subsidiary will focus on antibacterial and antifungal drug discovery and development, and will be located in Dallas. The subsidiary will combine Tularik¿s antibacterial and antifungal program with a drug discovery approach developed by a group at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

¿ Unigene Laboratories Inc., of Fairfield, N.J., said it successfully delivered insulin orally in preclinical studies. Unigene said it demonstrated significant blood levels, greater than 600 pg/ml, following administration of a single capsule. An associated blood glucose level decrease of 25 percent was also measured.

¿ Viragen Inc., of Plantation, Fla., said it was granted a nonexclusive worldwide license to the UK-based Medical Research Council¿s CDR Grafting Technology for use in the humanization of monoclonal antibodies. The technology is used in Viragen¿s collaboration with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for production of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies for treatment of melanoma and other cancers.