¿ Advanced BioAnalytical Services Inc., of Ithaca, N.Y., changed its name to Advion BioSciences Inc. Advion will commercialize its ElectroSpray Ionization Chip, an interface combining microfluidics and mass spectrometry for high-throughput analysis.

¿ GeneSoft Inc., of South San Francisco, entered an exclusive worldwide license agreement with the University of Alberta for patents based on research conducted in the laboratories of William Lown in the university's Department of Chemistry. The patents relate to compounds that recognize and bind to different DNA sequences and are useful as anticancer or antiviral agents, GeneSoft said.

¿ Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals Inc., of San Diego, received clearance from the South African Medicines Control Council to initiate testing of a new transmucosal (buccal) formulation of its lead investigational drug candidate, HE2000, in treatment-naove HIV-infected patients. The study will enroll 36 patients - 27 randomized to HE2000 and nine randomized to placebo. Patients will receive three treatment courses of HE2000 followed by three monthly follow-up visits.

¿ Hybrigen Inc., of Dallas, said it plans to double the size of its headquarters to about 8,000 square feet on April 1, moving into a building adjacent to its present location, giving it additional office and laboratory space.

¿ Hyseq Inc., of Sunnyvale, Calif., named Ted Love CEO. George Rathmann, who has served as chairman of Hyseq's board since February 2000 and CEO since May 2000, will continue as chairman. Love has been president since January. Also, Hyseq said its board decided to draw down the $20 million available under its line of credit with Rathmann and pay off the outstanding balance in shares of Hyseq common stock as provided in the agreement.

¿ Invitrogen Corp., of San Diego, and The Institute for Genomic Research, of Rockville, Md., completed a master distribution agreement for the distribution of genes. Invitrogen will have worldwide rights to distribute gene clones and clone sets derived from TIGR's gene libraries, as well as those developed by TIGR in the future, through Invitrogen's Research Genetics product line. Invitrogen is the worldwide distributor of TIGR's libraries of expressed sequence tag (EST) cDNA, microbial and parasite genomic clones, which total about 300,000 cDNA and genomic clones, including 70,000 human ESTs, 10,000 rat clones and 70,000 genomic clones from microbial organisms.

¿ Metabasis Therapeutics Inc., of San Diego, agreed with Sankyo Co. Ltd., of Tokyo, to extend their joint research collaboration, initiated in 1997, to develop oral drugs to treat diabetes mellitus. Sankyo will extend research funding to Metabasis through May 2002. Further financial terms were not disclosed. Metabasis said it expects to begin clinical testing of the first diabetes drug developed under this agreement this year.

¿ MGI Pharma Inc., of Minneapolis, said its sales force is promoting the anticancer products Hexalen Capsules (altretamine) and Mylocel Tablets (hydroxyurea) in the U.S. oncology market. The company got certain rights to sell those drugs from MedImmune Inc., of Gaithersburg, Md., and Barr Laboratories, in November and January, respectively.

¿ MorphoSys AG, of Munich, Germany, achieved the second milestone in its collaboration with F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., of Basel, Switzerland, on HuCAL-derived medications for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. MorphoSys delivered a series of HuCAL antibodies targeting the unspecified Roche antigen, triggering the undisclosed milestone payment.

¿ NeoRx Corp., of Seattle, entered an agreement to purchase certain radiopharmaceutical manufacturing assets from International Isotopes Inc., of Denton, Texas. NeoRx agreed to pay $6 million in cash and to assume $6 million of restructured debt of International Isotopes. Also, NeoRx agreed to file a registration statement to register the warrant shares for resale after closing and will hire certain employees to assist NeoRx with its proposed operations at the Denton facility. Separately, NeoRx is discussing with the FDA its proposed Skeletal Targeted Radiotherapy product. Its Phase III and other STR trials were placed on hold by the FDA after some Phase I/II patients developed a serious late toxicity. The FDA has requested additional dosimetry data to demonstrate the accuracy of the proposed method used to calculate the dose in its Phase III STR trials, the company said. (See BioWorld Today, Nov. 9, 2000.)

¿ NeuroSearch A/S, of Ballerup, Denmark, acquired the Danish company Display Systems Biotech A/S for DKK29 million (US$3.4 million). The acquisition has been effected by transferring some activities, rights, net assets and all the employees of Display Systems Biotech to a new company called Azign Bioscience A/S. NeuroSearch said it now has access to new genomics technology to be used to identify target proteins for drug discovery and diagnosing.

¿ Organogenesis Inc., of Canton, Mass., said its technology ventures business unit established a collaboration with Royce Medical Co., of Camarillo, Calif., for certain uses of Organogenisis' engineered collagen technology. Its engineered collagen technology achieves a noncellular sheet of purified collagen that can be designed in products to remain passive in the body or to integrate with bordering tissue.

¿ Symphogen A/S, of Copenhagen, Denmark, exclusively licensed Symphage technology worldwide from Boston University. Symphogen said it will use the technology to produce recombinant human polyclonal antibodies for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. Boston University receives an ownership interest in Symphogen, certain up-front payments, milestone payments and royalties on sales.