¿ Atrix Laboratories Inc., of Fort Collins, Colo., began patient enrollment in its Phase III trial of Atrisone for the treatment of moderate to severe acne. Atrisone is a combination of dapsone and Atrix¿s drug delivery system, SMP, which allows for topical delivery of water-insoluble drugs.

¿ Bavarian Nordic Research Institute A/S, of Copenhagen, Denmark, said primary data from its first clinical study with MVA-BN tyr vaccine in patients with late-stage melanoma showed it activates patients¿ immune systems to fight cancer cells. The study was carried out in Milan, Italy, and the vaccination established or boosted an immune response against the cancer cells, the company said.

¿ Biobase Biological Databases GmbH, of Braunschweig, Germany, and distribution partner Cognia Corp., of Mountain View, Calif., said Celera Genomics Group, of Rockville, Md.; Clontech Laboratories Inc., of Palo Alto, Calif.; and Exelixis Inc., of South San Francisco, subscribed the Transfac Professional database for analysis of transcription factors and transcription regulation. The subscription also gives the companies access to MATCH, a new tool for sequence mining for transcription factor binding sites.

¿ DeveloGen AG, of Gottingen, Germany, completed a EUR40 million (US$39.9 million) private financing led by Dresdner Kleinwort Capital, of Frankfurt, Germany. DeveloGen said it will use the funding to accelerate additional applications of its DeveloScreen technology platform. DeveloGen focuses on functional genomics using its DeveloScreen platform, which uses phenotypic variations in fruit fly, zebrafish, chick and mouse models to identify novel genes and validate their corresponding functions, and to relate those discoveries to disease.

¿ Genzyme General, of Cambridge, Mass., said DaVita Inc., of Torrence, Calif., a provider of dialysis treatment for patients with end-stage renal disease, will launch a program to make Renagel available to DaVita patients. Renagel is approved for the treatment of hyperphosphatmia in end-stage renal disease patients on hemodialysis.

¿ Gliatech Inc., of Cleveland, completed an International Standards Organization audit. The company, having also completed process development work related to raw material used in the manufacture of Adcon-L, its anti-scarring polymer, anticipates relaunching Adcon-L outside the U.S. in June. Gliatech voluntarily recalled Adcon-L gel in January in response to a voluntary recall by the supplier of a raw material used in its manufacture, after FDA questions about the recording and reporting of data in a clinical trial surfaced in August. Adcon-L was approved in the U.S. in May 1998 for inhibition of post-surgical scarring and adhesions following lumbar spine surgery, and the company said relaunch of the product in the U.S. is subject to the approval of additional data identified as a part of the FDA¿s application integrity policy. (See BioWorld Today, August 30, 2000.)

¿ Graffinity Pharmaceutical Design, of Heidelberg, Germany, completed a EUR30.6 million (US$26.72 million) pre-initial public offering financing led by the London-based Merlin Biosciences fund. Graffinity uses an integrated proteomics approach to drug discovery and development with a platform based on chemical microarrays, label-free imaging and a proprietary approach to compound optimization called RAISE (rapid array-informed structure evolution).

¿ IDUN Pharmaceuticals Inc., of San Diego, said it extended its worldwide research and development agreement with Abbott Laboratories Inc., of Abbott Park, Ill. The agreement, originally entered in 1998, focuses on the discovery and development of anticancer products, and the expansion will continue efforts to identify small-molecule drugs that target the apoptosis pathway. Financial details were undisclosed. The original deal was worth up to $30 million. (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 13, 1999.)

¿ Large Scale Biology Corp., of Vacaville, Calif., and Icon Genetics AG, of Munich, Germany, said they have targeted up to 200 genes for direct introduction into commercial plant varieties using Icon¿s Transgene Operating System technology. The genes were identified through Large Scale¿s Geneware functional genomics technology. The announcement was made at the ¿Global Agriculture 2020: Which Way Forward?¿ conference in Norwich, England.

¿ Lexicon Genetics Inc., of The Woodlands, Texas, said it delivered the second installment of the LexVision database to Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., of New York. The database contains in vivo mammalian gene function information for potential new drug targets. The installment triggered a further payment from Bristol-Myers for its first year of access to LexVision.

¿ Nabi, of Boca Raton, Fla., signed agreements with Acambis plc, of London, for Phase II testing of Acambis¿ Clostridium difficile toxoid vaccine in plasma donors and the production of specialty plasma to be used in the manufacture of C. difficile intravenous immune globulin. The agreement represents the first contract manufacturing agreement for Nabi¿s new manufacturing facility in Boca Raton.

¿ Rosetta Inpharmatics Inc., of Kirkland, Wash., said the University of Washington licensed the Rosetta Resolver Gene Expression Data Analysis System. Financial details of the license were undisclosed.

¿ Trinity Biotech plc, of Dublin, Ireland, relaunched its Captia Syphilis (T. pallidum)-G product after it received additional FDA clearance to be used as a diagnostic aid to provide serological evidence of infection with T. pallidum, the agent that causes syphilis. This is the first T. pallidum-based enzyme immunoassay product to achieve this status, the company said.

¿ Vysis Inc., of Downers Grove, Ill., said the FDA granted clearance for its AneuVysion prenatal testing product that allows for immediate reporting of test results. The previous policy called for test results based on fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) be withheld until cytogenic test results also were available, about seven to 10 days later. The change came from the acknowledgment by the American College of Medical Genetics and the American Association of Human Genetics that prenatal test results using FISH technology were highly accurate and reliable.