¿ Athersys Inc., of Cleveland, withdrew its initial public offering. The company, which focuses on the development of research tools and therapeutics, filed for the IPO in October. (See BioWorld Today, Oct. 16, 2000.)

¿ Cell Genesys Inc., of Foster City, Calif., said it initiated the first in a series of trials to evaluate a high-potency version of GVAX, its prostate cancer vaccine. The 40- to 60-patient trial will explore several treatment regimens, and will evaluate GVAX in combination with chemotherapy in patients who have failed standard hormone therapy.

¿ DoubleTwist Inc., of Oakland, said Rigel Pharmaceuticals Inc., of South San Francisco, licensed DoubleTwist¿s clustering and alignment tools. The computational tools allow users to organize volumes of expressed sequence tags and mRNA sequences into full-length gene sequences suitable for indexing. Financial details of the licensing were unavailable.

¿ Drug Royalty Corp. Inc., of Toronto, said it acquired a royalty interest in the sales of Remicade, a product for rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn¿s disease marketed by Johnson & Johnson. Drug Royalty acquired, for $7 million, the royalty interest in Remicade sales over its patent life, or about 13 years.

¿ Genetics Institute Inc., of Madison, N.J., and Deerfield, Ill.-based Baxter Healthcare Corp. settled action brought by Baxter against Genetics Institute in Delaware Chancery Court. The settlement calls for GI to sell Baxter all the bulk Recombinate manufactured by GI. Recombinate is Baxter¿s hemophilia treatment.

¿ Introgen Therapeutics Inc., of Austin, Texas, said the publication of data from a preclinical study in the current issue of Molecular Therapy indicated that a liposomal vector can deliver therapeutic genes to metastatic cancer sites by intravenous administration. Introgen licensed the technology from the National Institutes of Health. The study reported the successful delivery of the tumor suppression genes p53 and FHIT (fragile hystidine triad protein) using a cationic liposomal delivery system.

¿ Luminex Corp., of Austin, Texas, entered a strategic partnership with ARUP Laboratories, of Salt Lake City, allowing ARUP to develop and commercialize assays based on Luminex¿s Multi-Analyte Profiling (LabMAP) technology. Luminex will receive a royalty payment from the sales of diagnostic tests developed by ARUP, which will have access to the LabMAP technology for immunological applications such as the pneumococcal antibody profile and for molecular diagnostic tests. In separate news, Luminex said revenues for the first quarter were below its previous guidance of $4.2 million to $4.9 million. Revenues for the first quarter logged in at $3.9 million, and the company reported a net loss of about 14 cents per share. Luminex shares (NASDAQ:LMNX) fell $4.76, or 28 percent, on the news Tuesday to close at $12.30.

¿ M-phasys GmbH, of T|bingen, Germany, said it signed a research agreement with GlaxoSmithKline plc, of Brentford, UK, to target the in vitro functionality of a single, undisclosed G protein-coupled receptor. M-phasys will use its M-Fold refolding technology, capable of producing purified and fully functional membrane proteins, for the research. No further details were disclosed.

¿ Novazyme Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Oklahoma City, received orphan drug status from the FDA for its mucopolysaccharidosis I treatment. Novazyme applied for orphan status in January, submitting preclinical data for NZ-1002 that indicated the compound greatly enhances enzyme uptake into affected cells.

¿ Semorex Inc., of Jerusalem, said a new class of molecularly imprinted polymers (MIPs) has the ability to bind to small molecules and to target molecules with equal or greater potency than that of natural antibodies. The company disclosed the discovery of the new class of MIPs at an immunology meeting in New York.

¿ Organogenesis Inc., of Canton, Mass., submitted a European marketing application for its product, Apligraf, for treating diabetic foot ulcers and venous leg ulcers, to the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products. Novartis Pharma AG, of Basel, Switzerland, cooperated on the submission, has global marketing rights and is responsible for international regulatory filings. Apligraf is a cellular, bilayered skin substitute and would be regulated as a drug in Europe.

¿ Oxford Biomedica plc, of Oxford, UK, raised #35.5 million (US$51.1 million) through a placement and open offer of 64.5 million shares at 55 pence each. It sold 5.3 million shares under the open offer, accounting for #2.9 million. NM Rothschild & Sons Ltd. and Beeson Gregory Ltd. acted as underwriters for 54.5 million shares in the placement. Oxford Biomedica said it would use the money to fund drug research and also to strengthen its U.S. presence.

¿ Stressgen Biotechnologies Corp., of Victoria, British Columbia, said that based on positive preclinical data it will evaluate a novel heat shock protein for its therapeutic potential in the treatment of hepatitis B. Data presented at the Experimental Biology 2001 meeting showed a fusion protein containing a heat shock protein fused to a highly conserved protein from hepatitis B virus elicited cytotoxic T cells that recognize hepatitis B virus antigens. The data suggested that the T cells, which also produced the hepatitis B replication-inhibiting cytokine interferon gamma, would be capable of killing hepatitis B-infected cells.

¿ Valentis Inc., of Burlingame, Calif., said it will consolidate all its PEGylation research in its facilities in The Woodlands, Texas. The consolidation will eliminate about 15 jobs at the current PEGylation research facility in London and reduce Valentis¿ total personnel to about 110 employees. The technology will be transferred to The Woodlands over the next six months.