¿ Agilent Technologies Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif., and MDS Proteomics Inc., of Toronto, agreed to develop new protein analysis technologies and products expected to speed the development of new medicines. The focus of the partnership will be to develop specialized products that speed the process of identifying and analyzing proteins.

¿ Battelle Pulmonary Therapeutics Inc., of Columbus, Ohio, said the FDA notified it that its doxorubicin inhalation therapy received fast-track status as a treatment for pulmonary brochioloalveolar carcinoma. A Phase I trial of inhaled doxorubicin is ongoing.

¿ Blue Heron Biotechnology Inc., of Bothell, Wash., relocated to an expanded facility. The 15,000-square-foot facility provides the company with additional space to expand manufacturing capacity for its GeneMaker gene synthesis platform, as well as enlarge research and development facilities.

¿ Celeris Corp., of Nashville, Tenn., received notification from Nasdaq that, as a result of the company¿s failure to meet certain continuing listing requirements, the common stock will be delisted from Nasdaq¿s National Market effective immediately. Celeris¿ stock will begin trading on the OTC Bulletin Board.

¿ DeCode Genetics Inc., of Reykjavik, Iceland, identified a gene causally involved in stroke and mapped the chromosomal location of a gene linked to Type II diabetes. F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., of Basel, Switzerland, deCode¿s research partner, will use this latest discovery to develop drug and diagnostic programs. DeCode is entitled to milestone payments for the discoveries.

¿ Delta Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Research Triangle Park, N.C., changed its name to Ardent Pharmaceuticals Inc. The company said the new name reflects its commitment to developing a broad range of novel compounds that address significant unmet medical needs. The company closed a $25 million financing round in the fall of last year.

¿ Dyax Corp., of Cambridge, Mass., entered into a license agreement with Wyeth-Genetics Institute, of Cambridge, Mass., the biotechnology unit of American Home Products Corp., of Madison, N.J. The commercial license is for a unique, chemically sizeable ligand, discovered by Dyax, which, according to the company, has a high capacity as well as specificity for purification of Wyeth-Genetic Institute¿s proprietary Factor VIII product, ReFacto.

¿ Dynavax Technologies Corp., of Berkeley, Calif., started a Phase I/II observer-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled study to test the immunogenicity, efficacy and safety of subcutaneously administered Dynavax Amb a-1 immunostimulatory oligodeoxyribonucleotide conjugate, in ragweed-allergic adults. The study is being conducted at Johns Hopkins University Medical School.

¿ Enzon Inc., of Piscataway, N.J. reported interim results of two ongoing clinical studies conducted by Schering-Plough Research Institute, with once-weekly Peg-Intron (peginterferon alfa-2b) injections and daily Rebetol (ribavirin) capsules in patients with chronic hepatitis C who did not respond to, or had relapsed following, previous interferon-based therapy. In a 48-week study evaluating two different doses of both drugs, combined results of the two dosing regimens for the subset of patients who did not respond to prior combination therapy showed that 35 percent of these patients had a virologic response after 24 weeks of treatment. Data were presented at the Digestive Disease Week meeting in Atlanta.

¿ EpiGenesis Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cranbury, N.J., said a new class of drug might offer improved control of multifactorial diseases by targeting multiple mRNAs simultaneously. The class of drugs being studied is respirable antisense oligonucleotides. The data were presented at the Antisense 2000, Advances in EpiGenetic Medicine international conference, sponsored by Nature Biotechnology. The company also updated progress on EPI-2010, showing it was well tolerated after single doses and provided an indication of pharmacological effect on breathing improvement in asthma patients.

¿ FeRx Inc., of San Diego, Calif., received approval from China¿s State Drug Administration in Beijing to conduct a multicenter Phase II study using its MTC technology to deliver its lead compound, MTC-Doxorubicin, in patients with primary liver cancer. This is the first time the SDA has approved an investigative procedure that has not first been approved for commercial use in the United States, Europe or Japan, the company said.

¿ Genzyme Corp., of Cambridge, Mass., filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission for the purchase of Focal Inc., of Lexington, Mass. The transaction was announced April 26. The merger is expected to close in the second or third quarter of 2001, pending approval by Focal shareholders. Focal shareholders will receive 0.1545 shares of Genzyme Biosurgery stock for each share of Focal common stock. According to Genzyme, the acquisition will combine Focal¿s intellectual property portfolio and expertise in synthetic biomaterials with Genzyme¿s resources, infrastructure and surgical biomaterial products. (See BioWorld Today, April 27, 2001.)

¿ Gliatech Inc., of Cleveland, said it relaunched Adcon-L internationally. Gliatech¿s manufacturing contractor, European Medical Contract Manufacturing BV, of the Netherlands, initiated shipment to distributors Tuesday. Gliatech voluntarily recalled Adcon-L gel products as a result of a recall by the supplier of a raw material component of Adcon-L. The relaunch covers most countries in Europe, Canada, South Africa, Turkey and Puerto Rico.

¿ Hybrigenics SA, of Paris, opened a joint research facility with Institut Curie focused on the development of cancer therapeutics. Projects hosted by the lab will focus on exploring and validating critical protein pathways involved in cancer through the mapping of cellular protein interactions in the model organism Drosophila melanogaster (the fruit fly) and in human cells.

¿ ID Biomedical Corp., of Vancouver, British Columbia, initiated human safety and immunogenicity studies on its subunit intranasal flu vaccine. The follow-up to the company¿s Phase I trial of the monovalent intranasal flu vaccine will characterize the immune response elicited by several regimens in patients with a variety of previous immunologic experiences with influenza.

¿ Karo Bio AB, of Stockholm, Sweden, finalized the exclusive licensing of technology developed at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C. The licensing includes Cellular Braille Technology, which further expands the capabilities of Karo Bio¿s Molecular Braille Technology originally developed in cooperation with Duke. Cellular Braille technology allows further characterization of and confirmation of promising compounds in living cells, which, the company said, adds value and precision to the selection of compounds for development.

¿ Lexicon Genetics Inc., of The Woodlands, Texas, and Taconic Farms Inc., of Germantown, N.Y., said they formed a technology sublicensing program permitting academic research use of positive-negative selection and isogenic DNA technologies for the generation and use of transgenic and knockout mammalian models of human gene function. The program makes patented technology available to academic institutions nationwide.

¿ Medarex Inc., of Princeton, N.J., opened a new antibody development center and future manufacturing facility in Greenwich Township, N.J. The new facility will house Medarex¿s research and development labs, a pilot plant and manufacturing operations, which the company expects will be completed in several expansion phases over the next two years.

¿ Nymox Pharmaceutical Corp., of Maywood, N.J., said clinical studies in peer-reviewed medical journals, including Alzheimer¿s Reports, support the accuracy and efficacy of its AlzheimAlert urinary test. The report in Alzheimer¿s Reports involves patients and controls, totaling 140 participants, from five institutes. The AlzheimAlert test is designed to aid in diagnosing Alzheimer¿s disease.

¿ Orchid BioSciences Inc., of Princeton, N.J., adopted a stockholders rights plan designed to strengthen the ability of the board to protect Orchid shareholders. Under the plan, stockholders receive one right to purchase a fractional share of a new series of Orchid preferred stock for each share of common stock held at the close of business on May 31, 2001. The rights will be exercisable only if a person or group acquires 15 percent or more of Orchid common stock. The company said the plan was not adopted in response to any offer or takeover attempt.

¿ Quorex Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Carlsbad, Calif., acquired the exclusive rights for a newly discovered set of bacterial proteins that regulate human cell apoptosis from The Burnham Institute, of La Jolla, Calif. According to scientists at the institute, the new proteins represent the beginning of potential bacterial drug targets that regulate human cell death response.

¿ RegeneRx Biopharmaceuticals Inc., of Bethesda, Md., said it entered a materials cooperative research and development agreement with the National Institutes of Health. The agreement is a continuation of a collaboration between RegeneRx and the NIH¿s National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research dedicated to thymosin beta 4, a compound that has shown promise as a wound-healing therapeutic.

¿ SciClone Pharmaceuticals Inc., of San Mateo, Calif., was granted orphan drug status throughout the European Union for CPX, its protein-repair therapy for the treatment of cystic fibrosis. CPX already has been granted orphan status by the FDA and currently is in Phase II trials in the United States.

¿ Senomyx Inc., of La Jolla, Calif., appointed Paul Grayson chairman of the board. Grayson has been serving as CEO and president and was a founder. Grayson was previously senior vice president, corporate development, at San Diego-based Aurora Biosciences Corp.

¿ Targeted Genetics Corp., of Seattle, received a Small Business Innovation Research grant potentially worth more than $600,000 from the National Institutes of Health. The funding, contingent upon the achievement of specified milestones, will support additional research in the area of cell line-based production of gene-delivery vectors.

¿ Techno Venture Management, of Munich, Germany, a German-U.S. venture capital firm, wrapped up the first closing of TVM V Life Sciences Ventures at EUR70 million (US$60.6 million). TVM began raising its fifth generation of venture capital earlier this year. The most recent generation, for the first time, consists of two industry-specific fund entities: TVM V Life Sciences is a dedicated life science fund and TVM V Information Technology is a dedicated information and telecommunications fund.

¿ Versicor Inc., Fremont, Calif., started a Phase II study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of its novel investigational antibiotic, dalbavancin (formerly V-Glycopeptide), for the treatment of complicated skin and soft tissue infections caused by Gram-positive bacteria, usually Staphylococci. The randomized, controlled, open-label study will enroll about 60 hospitalized patients with skin and soft-tissue infections, such as abscesses, infected ulcers, burns and cellulitis. Versicor is developing dalbavancin for commercialization in the United States and Canada under a licensing agreement with Biosearch Italia SpA, of Gerenzano, Italy, which retains rights for the rest of the world.

¿ Vivus Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., released clinical results of its safety study of Alista, a proprietary topical formulation of alprostadil for the treatment of female sexual arousal disorder. According to the company, the study demonstrated the safety of a single dose of Alista, applied topically, in healthy women. Vivus has begun a safety and efficacy study of the treatment in that indication.