¿ Acorda Therapeutics Inc., of Hawthorne, N.Y., raised $6 million in the second closing of a private venture financing round. The total for the round, which brought in $33.7 million in January, is now $39.7 million. Acorda said it will use the financing to aggressively pursue research and development activities. (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 10, 2001.)

¿ Biomira Inc., of Edmonton, Alberta, said it completed enrollment in its 950-patient Theratope vaccine trial for metastatic breast cancer. The Phase III trial is designed to evaluate Theratope's efficacy at delaying disease progression and increasing survival.

¿ CollaGenex Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Newtown, Pa., said studies indicating that the use of its product for the adjunctive treatment of adult periodontitis, Periostat, indicated that the therapy can reduce bone loss in the jaws of postmenopausal women who suffer from symptoms of osteoporosis, osteopenia and periodontitis. The studies, seven in all, were presented at the American Association for Dental Research meeting in Chicago.

¿ Curis Inc., of Cambridge, Mass., said a pilot study published in the February 2001 issue of Neurourology and Urodynamics indicated patients with stress urinary incontinence treated with chondrogel experienced significant improvement in their conditions. Chondrogel is in Phase III testing to evaluate its potential as a treatment for vesicoureteral reflux, a pediatric urological disorder.

¿ Cytoclonal Pharmaceutics Inc., of Dallas, completed work to identify a new expression system for the enzyme defective in Gaucher's disease, glucocerebrosidase, and will now explore opportunities for licensing its technology to companies active in this field.

¿ De Novo Pharmaceuticals Ltd., of Cambridge, UK, entered a drug design collaboration with N.V. Organon, of Oss, the Netherlands. Details of the collaboration were sparse, but the companies said Organon paid a technology access fee and will provide research funding for one year and pay milestone payments on discovery and development achievements. In return, De Novo will offer its expertise and platform of proprietary computer algorithms to provide Organon with novel, patentable small-molecule leads in an undisclosed research area.

¿ DoubleTwist Inc., of Oakland, Calif., withdrew its bid for an initial public offering, citing market conditions. The bioinformatics company, which in January 2000 launched the DoubleTwist.com research portal, a web-based tool designed to provide access to genomics data, analysis and visualization tools, filed for the IPO in September, seeking to raise about $86 million through the sale of 5 million shares at $13 to $15 each. (See BioWorld Today Sept. 6, 2000.)

¿ Durect Corp., of Cupertino, Calif., completed patient enrollment in its Phase II trial of Duros sufentanil. The company expects to meet with the FDA by early fall for an end-of-Phase-II meeting concerning the product. The trial is designed to determine the dose conversion from other approved opioid medications.

¿ Emisphere Technologies Inc., of Tarrytown, N.Y., commenced clinical testing of oral heparin tablets formulated with Emisphere's delivery agent, Sodium N-[10-(2 hydroxybenzoyl)amino] decanoate. A Phase III trial of a related delivery method with heparin in oral solution formulation also is under way.

¿ Gendaq Ltd., of London, said its high-throughput robotic zinc finger engineering platform is now fully operational. The company said this increases its ability to create novel zinc finger switches for target genes.

¿ Ricerca LLC, of Concord, Ohio, entered an agreement with ICOS Corp., of Bothell, Wash., to produce a small-molecule inhibitor. It will produce active pharmaceutical ingredient material for use in a Phase I trial scheduled to begin in 2001.

¿ Human Genome Sciences Inc., of Rockville, Md., entered an agreement to purchase a research and manufacturing facility in Rockville for $55 million. The 18-acre, three-building facility totals 240,000 square feet of research and development labs and offices, and is currently owned by Invitrogen Life Science Technologies, of San Diego. HGS said it will use the facility to expand its antibody drug discovery efforts, and for the relocation and expansion of Principia Corp. HGS acquired Principia in September for $120 million in stock. (See BioWorld Today, Sept. 12, 2000.)

¿ IntraBiotics Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Mountain View, Calif., said data from its Phase IIa trial of Protegrin IB-367 indicates that the compound was well tolerated and demonstrated antimicrobial activity when administered to patients at increased risk of developing pneumonia because they require a ventilator for breathing assistance. The 16-patient multiple-dose study echoed results of a Phase I study reported last month. Three Phase III studies evaluating Protegrin IB-367 for reduction of oral mucositis in cancer patients are under way.

¿ Maxygen Inc., of Redwood City, Calif., said it won a binding arbitration case with Enchira Biotechnology Corp., of The Woodlands, Texas. The arbitrator found that Enchira breached three provisions of the development agreement the companies entered in 1997, and that Enchria's Rachitt gene shuffling technology was derived from Maxygen's technologies. Further arbitration proceedings are planned to determine remedies for the breaches.

¿ Novartis Agricultural Discovery Institute Inc., of San Diego, changed its name to Torrey Mesa Research Institute. The institute became a subsidiary of Syngenta, of Basel, Switzerland, in the beginning of the year following the merger of Novartis Agribusiness and Zeneca Agrochemicals in November.

¿ Pharmagene plc, of Royston, UK, singed a new Phase ZERO deal with Taisho Pharmaceutical Ltd., of Tokyo. The agreement calls for Pharmagene to use human hepatocytes to investigate gene expression profiling, and to use human tissue to carry out pharmacological profiling on Taisho compounds prior to entering clinical studies. Financial details were unavailable.

¿ Pharming Group N.V., of Leiden, the Netherlands, and Baxter Healthcare Corp., of Deerfield, Ill., started a Phase I trial with a recombinant human C1 inhibitor in asymptomatic patients with hereditary angioedema. The study is the first with any form of a recombinant human C1 inhibitor, and will evaluate the therapy's safety, tolerability, clearance and activity.

¿ Sanguine Corp., of Pasadena, Calif., terminated a warrant agreement executed in June with Westbury Consultancy Services Ltd. Westbury was granted warrants to acquire 12 million shares of Sanguine common stock at an exercise price of 30 cents per share in return for endorsement, sponsoring and foreign joint venture partner finding services. The decision to terminate the agreement was mutual and amicable, the company said.

¿ V.I. Technologies Inc., of Watertown, Mass., signed a letter of intent for a management-led divestiture of its intermediate plasma fraction and virally inactivated transfusion plasma production operations. The transaction is valued at between $34 million and $38 million, and the company anticipates about $30 million of the transaction price will be in cash. V.I. Technologies expects the transaction to close as early as the end of the quarter.